by Jane Feather
But he was a self-deluding fool if he imagined he could ever appeal physically to his wife. Not that he had ever expected to attract her, but he had hoped that she wouldn’t be totally repulsed by him. A fond hope, he thought bitterly.
The shooting party was already mounted and moving out when he emerged into the courtyard. Ariel was riding the same roan mare he’d seen the previous day. The animal was skittish in the crowd, tossing her head, pawing the ground, sidling her rump into the horses to either side. Ariel seemed unconcerned, deep in conversation with Jack Chauncey, who, Simon noticed with a degree of sympathy, was having difficulty keeping his hands off the dancing roan’s bridle.
He mounted his own piebald and immediately felt the relief of being once more as mobile as anyone else. On horseback his limp was unnoticeable, and his riding skill was unaffected by his wounds. He joined the group now moving out across the drawbridge, drawing up alongside Ariel and Jack.
“That roan is very fresh, Ariel.”
“I was about to say the same myself,” Jack agreed. “You don’t think she’s a little too spirited for a lady?”
Ariel went into a peal of laughter, and the mare kicked her heels back as if sharing the hilarity. “Would you have women ride only round-bellied cobs of stolid disposition, Lord Chauncey?”
Jack looked a little discomfited. “Women are not as strong as men, ma’am. I would hesitate to give any of my female relatives the charge of such a mount as that roan.”
“What think you, my lord?” Ariel glanced mischievously at her husband, her earlier annoyance forgotten. “Would you forbid your wife to ride such a mettlesome creature as my Diana?”
“I doubt it would do me much good if I did,” Simon observed mildly. “But since you seem to have the beast well in hand, the issue is clearly moot.”
Ariel was pleased with the answer. Chuckling, she nudged the mare’s flanks, and Diana took off with a whinny, the hounds streaking ahead of her. Oliver Becket with an exultant shout put spur to his horse and galloped in hot pursuit. Ariel looked over her shoulder and encouraged the roan to lengthen her stride.
Simon, without knowing quite why, set the piebald in pursuit of Oliver Becket. It was a juvenile thing to do, to engage in such a race, and yet he couldn’t help himself. It was almost as if he needed to compete with the younger man, to prove himself as strong and capable. Oliver’s face was set, his lips gripped tight as he pushed his horse to draw ever closer to the roan.
Although Ariel didn’t once look behind her, Simon knew she could hear the pounding hooves of her pursuer. He could sense the excitement of the racers, the tension between them. It was a tension that set his teeth on edge, reminding him of the scene he’d interrupted the previous evening. They were in competition again; the air between them seethed with sexual challenge. He didn’t know whether Ariel wanted to be caught or not. But he knew that he could not endure Oliver Becket to reach her before he did.
He touched his spurs to the piebald’s flanks, and the animal, unused to such an unkind prod, threw out his great chest and surged forward. He was neck and neck with Oliver now. The other man looked over at him. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, his eyes glittered. There was loathing and a blind determination on the set face.
The piebald nudged ahead. Oliver whipped at his horse’s flanks but the animal was beginning to flag. Then Simon drew alongside the roan. Ariel shot him a startled look. She had expected to see Oliver. Simon smiled, unable to hide his own jubilation.
“Pull up now,” he instructed. “The race is run and Becket’s horse is winded.”
Ariel glanced backward and saw that Oliver was still mercilessly flogging his exhausted horse. She drew rein immediately, her eyes filled with anger, her mouth taut. “For God’s sake, Oliver, leave the poor beast alone! He can do no more.”
“The damned animal is fit for nothing but the knacker’s yard,” Oliver declared furiously, hauling on the reins. The animal’s neck was lathered with sweat, his eyes rolled frantically, foam flecked the cruel curb bit, and blood welled from whip and spur cuts on his flanks.
“You are a brute,” Ariel declared with throbbing ferocity. “He’s in a muck sweat.”
“Well, it was your idea to race,” Oliver said, sounding sulky as a schoolboy who knows he’s in the wrong.
“I was not racing. I was merely letting Diana have her head. I was not issuing any invitations!”
“Since when did that stop?” Oliver demanded with a smirk. “You’ve always been very free with your invitations, bud.” He glanced sideways at Simon, who sat his horse, unmoving beside them, then Oliver wrenched his horse’s head around and rode back to the cavalcade still some distance behind them.
“Such an unpleasant, boorish individual,” Simon remarked. “But perhaps there’s another side to him?” He raised an eyebrow quizzically.
Ariel felt herself blushing again. “I would count it a favor, my lord, if Oliver Becket were not mentioned between us again.”
“That might be a little difficult, given our present situation,” Simon said. “But perhaps if you held yourself aloof from him, then it might be easier to ignore him.”
“Are you suggesting that I encourage him?” she demanded, sparks of flame like shooting stars bright against the gray of her almond-shaped eyes.
“I am saying that you should be careful not to put yourself into situations that could be misinterpreted,” Simon explained. “Taking off as you just did could easily be assumed as an invitation to follow.”
“One I see that you took up,” she responded, her lips pressed tight. “If you disapproved of my gallop, sir, I wonder why you would have joined it.”
“Better your husband should race with you, dear girl, than your would-be lover.” He turned his horse back toward the approaching party. “Come. Let’s join the others, and let’s try to look as if we’re in accord.”
Ariel muttered something less than polite under her breath but set the roan to trot after him. It was true that for a moment she’d forgotten all but the excitement of the race. There had always been an edge to her dealings with Oliver—a competitive, challenging edge that had only made them more exciting. And when she’d heard him pounding the turf behind her, she’d felt the same pure thrill of exhilaration that she’d experienced when dancing with him the previous evening. But it was only a flash of pleasure, and it was now inevitably followed by a sour self-distaste. She was beginning to wonder now how she could ever have yielded to Oliver. And how much had that yielding been orchestrated by her brothers? She had been led by the nose, even while she had thought she was responding simply out of her own instinctive passion.
But her brothers wouldn’t do it again. The promise lifted her spirits somewhat. She would not play the pander in their games with Lord Hawkesmoor. At least, she amended, not again. She’d allowed herself to be used because she’d been so wrapped up in her own concerns that she hadn’t given the situation proper attention. From now on, nothing would slip past her, and she’d plan her own escape from the morass as soon as she could put the pieces together.
“That was a mad ride, sister. Just look at the condition of Oliver’s horse,” Ralph called to her as she rode up. His eyes, half shut against the feeble sunlight, squinted at her. He was very drunk already, unless he hadn’t sobered up after the previous night, Ariel reflected acidly.
“The condition of Oliver’s horse has nothing to do with me, Ralph. I wasn’t riding him.” She looked in disgust at Oliver, who was still flailing at his windblown nag. “I would never have been stupid enough to imagine any horse in Oliver’s stable could beat Diana.”
“Then it would be only neighborly to gift me with one of your precious beasts,” Oliver snarled. “Don’t you think, Ravenspeare?”
Ranulf smiled. “How about it, sister? Not quite the ride he’s accustomed to, but a consolation prize, perhaps?”
There was a burst of knowing laughter from the group of Ravenspeare intimates at this coarse sally. Sly looks were cas
t in the direction of the earl of Hawkesmoor, but he appeared to be deep in conversation with Lord Stanton, oblivious of the talk around him.
He must have heard, though. Ariel said sweetly, “I trust my horses only to the most accomplished riders. I’m afraid that Oliver has never impressed me with his skill. He lacks a certain finesse, I find.” She watched the effect of this measured insult with naked satisfaction. Oliver paled, a white shade around his mouth. Ranulf looked as if he would cheerfully murder his sister, but her remark had been greeted with snorts of appreciative laughter from the audience, and neither man could react with anger without looking even more foolish.
Simon still appeared deaf, but when Ariel dropped back a little to ride at his side, he gave her a look that would have turned cream to whey. She had been smiling with pleasure at her riposte, expecting her husband to appreciate the speed and wit with which she’d crushed her opponents and defended his honor. Instead he was looking at her as if she were a particularly lowly member of the insect family. Even Lord Stanton was looking grave and didn’t return her smile.
Ariel couldn’t understand why she was suddenly submerged in unspoken reproof, but she set her teeth and raised her chin, studiously ignoring her companions until they reached the shore of the large mere where they were to try for the first sport of the afternoon.
“A thousand guineas for one colt!” Ranulf exclaimed incredulously.
“Aye, m’lord. Thought you might find it interestin’.” The man’s tone was both wheedling and sly. He stood in the stable-yard, holding the long stilts that he’d worn to stride over the treacherous marshes that separated his tumbledown peat cutter’s cottage from the grandeur of Ravenspeare Castle.
Ranulf drove his hands into the deep pockets of his coat. It was evening and a chill wind gusted around the stables. Stan had been waiting for him when the duck shoot had returned at dusk, and the earl had guessed immediately from the man’s shifty grin that he had information to sell.
“Mr. Carstairs is powerful anxious to set up ’is own stud,” Stan continued, a touch desperate in his eagerness to convince his lordship of the value of his information. The earl was not overly generous at the best of times and had been known to refuse to pay more than a groat for some kernel of local gossip that Stan had valued considerably higher. “’E likes the lines of ’er ladyship’s ’osses. For racin’ an’ such like.” He looked anxiously at the earl, who was scowling in the flickering light of a pitch torch set beside him.
Horse racing was becoming increasingly popular among the gentry, ever since the introduction of the Darley Arabian into the English blood lines five years previously. Stan had heard tell that the queen herself was considering establishing a horse race at Ascot, near London. He waited.
Ranulf turned on his heel and strode across the yard to the block where Ariel kept her own hobby horses. Hobby! he thought with a grim smile. All along that artful child had been breeding a highly prized strain right under his eyes. And now she looked to turn a handsome profit.
He strolled down the line of stalls, aware of Edgar dogging his heels. His previous visits had always been made out of mild curiosity, but this evening he looked with different eyes. There was only one weaned colt, and even a cursory glance was sufficient to tell that he was a beautiful animal. Just when had Ariel managed to make the contacts that had brought her such a lucrative sale? Whom did she know who could facilitate such a business? John Carstairs and his young family had but recently joined the neighborhood, inheriting the estate of a distant cousin. The reclusive and suspicious Fen folk were still suspending judgment on the newcomers. But Ariel seemed to have no such reticence. His little sister’s daily activities obviously would bear greater scrutiny than he’d accorded them hitherto.
He moved casually along the stalls, deciding that he would not let on to anyone—not even his brothers—that he knew about the sale of the colt, or, indeed, that he knew anything about his devious little sister’s business on the side. There had to be some profit to be made for himself out of Ariel’s activities.
With a careless nod at the watchful groom, he left the long, narrow building. Horse thieves abounded in the Fens. What would be more natural than that Ariel’s stud should be raided on occasion? He could send the stolen animals downriver to the family shipyard at Harwich. They could be shipped to the Hook of Holland and sold profitably on the continent, and if the stolen stock didn’t appear in English stables, no one, least of all Ariel, would be able to trace the thefts to the castle itself.
He was smiling as he emerged into the cold evening and Stan stepped anxiously toward him. “I trust the information’s of use, m’lord.”
“It might be,” Ranulf said distantly, withdrawing his purse from his pocket. “But if anyone else gets to hear of it, I’ll have your ears sliced for vagrancy, you understand?”
As the local magistrate, the earl of Ravenspeare could do that and more. Stan nodded his head vigorously. “Mum’s the word, m’lord. You know ol’ Stan. Silent as the grave.” He held out his hand, his eyes glittering, for the silver coin that the earl dropped into his outstretched palm. Then he hoisted himself onto his stilts and strode off like a circus acrobat to be swallowed up in the Fen night.
Ranulf returned to the castle. The musicians were already playing for the evening’s festivities, the long tables set for the banquet. Servants hurried around the Great Hall with trays of wine, mead, and brandy for the guests already gathered there. Most had changed from their outdoor garb into the rich brocades and velvets of evening. It was a wedding after all, although there was as yet no sign of the bride and groom.
Ranulf, having been delayed by Stan, was still mud bespattered. He made his way to his own chamber, his smile fading. His little sister was becoming a damnable nuisance!
Ranulf scrubbed his face dry and took the clean shirt from his attentive servant. Why, in direct defiance of her brother’s instructions and family loyalties, had she succumbed to the Hawkesmoor in the bridal bed? And not only that, but her tongue was becoming cursed sharp. To make public game of Oliver in that fashion, and in front of the poxed Hawkesmoor and his cadre! It wasn’t to be tolerated.
He sat down on a stool, sticking out his foot so that his servant could pull off his filthy boots. His expression was dark and the manservant cringed, expecting from long experience that the sudden storm would break over his head at the slightest provocation.
Ranulf was thinking that the sooner Ariel was widowed, the better. He had intended with the gift of the charm bracelet and the precious silver rose to buy her passive cooperation, but it seemed he had miscalculated. And now that he knew about the stud, he had even more reason to keep his sister tied to Ravenspeare. It was unthinkable that she, her loathsome husband, her dowry of the disputed land, and all the riches of an Arabian stud should decamp to Hawkesmoor, there to live in wealth and harmony . . . .
It was unthinkable! And until this moment, the thought had indeed never entered Ranulf’s head—any more than had the thought that he might not have his sister firmly under his control.
But Ariel had proved herself a devious, cunning creature. What if she had already conceived? He went cold at the thought. If Ariel carried a Hawkesmoor child, then the Ravenspeare land that made up her dowry was forfeit under the marriage settlements to her husband’s family. The child of a damned Hawkesmoor would inherit land that belonged to Ravenspeare—no matter that the child bore Ravenspeare blood. It was impossible, without Ariel’s cooperation, to keep her from her bridegroom’s bed. Such a scandal would reach the queen’s ears and all would be lost.
Simon Hawkesmoor must be removed without delay. And if Ariel carried a child, then that too must be eliminated. It was high time to bring Ariel to heel again, but first he’d have to get rid of those damned dogs. He didn’t know why he hadn’t taken care of them months before. He would teach his defiant sister where her loyalties and her obedience lay.
His small mouth was a thin line, but the satisfaction of purpose gleamed
in his narrow gray eyes as he adjusted his wig, arranging the ringlets to fall on his shoulders, giving a certain fullness to his sharp-featured, angular countenance.
It was with great relief that the manservant saw his master out of the chamber five minutes later without the expected explosion.
Chapter Eight
“FOR GOD’S SAKE, man, be sensible!” Jack Chauncey allowed his exasperation free rein. “You’re in agony. You can hardly move your leg. What possible good will it do you to go belowstairs for another evening of fruitless and debauched junketing?”
“It’ll do me more good than cowering up here,” Simon declared through clenched teeth. He was lying back on a chaise longue, trying to flex his lame leg. An afternoon in the damp miasma of a Fenland mere had played merry hell with his shattered limb. “I’ll not be beaten by the Ravenspeares, Jack. I’ll not have false pity and behind-the-hand laughter directed at me. ‘A fine virile husband he makes, the Hawkesmoor,’” he mimicked. “Gobbling on his stick, can’t stand upright most of the time, a pathetic—’”
“Oh, hold your tongue, Simon!” Jack interrupted, giving up the attempt to make the man see reason. He seized Simon’s foot, flexing it against his shoulder. “Push.”
Simon gritted his teeth and pushed. The wasted calf muscles tightened agonizingly but he continued, fighting through the pain. Sometimes it was worse than others and this evening was about as bad as it had ever been. His mouth took a wry turn as it occurred to him that on top of the afternoon’s damp he was probably suffering the aftereffects of his gallant dash to his bride’s rescue the previous night. The muscles were clenched into a tight knot so that he could hardly bear to straighten the calf without crying out, and his knee felt as if scalding pincers were at work beneath the skin. But he knew from bitter experience that if he gave in to the pain, he would be bedridden for several days.
A knock at the door brought a snarling denial to his lips. “Leave me!”