by Jane Feather
Edgar reached for the dogs’ collars and held them firmly. He turned to the men with the horses behind him. “Take ’em back.”
Simon gave a short satisfied nod and turned away as if he had no more interest in the scene. He brought his cane up, the knob pressing firmly into the small of Ariel’s back. “Let us return to the house. I’d like to hear your explanations, even if I can guess them myself, in more comfortable surroundings.”
Ariel hung back, looking over her shoulder at the ruin of her great escape. The knob of the cane pressed more firmly.
She bit her lip, tears of angry frustration filling her eyes. But she moved forward, stumbling over a stone, kicking it aside with a savage execration under her breath.
She had lost everything. Without her stud under her own control, she had no income to ensure her own future.
His anger felt like a knife edge against her skin. It hadn’t taken him more than a heartbeat to guess the truth—that she had never had any intention of trying to make their marriage work.
And through her desperation, anger blazed that he’d dictated to her, ridden roughshod over her actions and her wishes, just as her brothers had always done. How right she had been not to have trusted him. But now what difference did it make?
Involuntarily she increased her pace but he was still holding her wrist and jerked her back beside him so that she was forced to go at the speed he dictated.
“Damn you, Hawkesmoor!” She stopped dead on the path so that he almost stumbled. Anger consumed her. “You’ve wrecked my life, ruined everything I’ve worked for, and I will not be brought to heel like a dog on a leash.”
“Then walk properly instead of all this stopping and starting.”
Ariel compressed her lips but said nothing more as they continued toward the side door of the castle.
The party in the green parlor had broken up soon after Simon’s departure. Helene had already dismissed her maid when she heard what she’d been waiting for—Simon’s unmistakable footsteps in the passage outside. Consumed with curiosity, she opened her door a crack. Simon and Ariel were coming down the corridor toward her. Simon’s face was drawn and haggard, but his eyes were ablaze with blue fire. He held Ariel’s wrist as he limped along. Ariel’s face was pale and set, a sheen of tears in her eyes. She looked both wildly angry and bitterly crushed.
Helene stepped back as they reached Ariel’s bedchamber opposite. Ariel opened the door and as she stepped in she flung her wrist free of Simon’s hold almost as if by so doing she could fling him bodily away from her. It looked to Helene as if she was about to slam the door in his face, but Simon moved behind her with surprising dexterity and the door closed on them both with a decisive click.
Helene despised herself but couldn’t help herself. She glanced along the deserted passage, then slipped out and behind the tapestry that hung against the cold stone wall beside Ariel’s door. She didn’t know whether she’d be able to hear anything through the crack around the door hinges, but her curiosity was a ravening beast. She had come here to help Simon in his marriage, and if that marriage was in trouble, and it certainly looked as if it was, then she needed to know. She pressed her ear against the sliver of a gap.
“So, I’ve ruined your life . . . wrecked everything . . . I think you said.” Simon leaned against the windowsill. He was too worked up to sit down, but after his difficult and frigid walk, his leg was aching like the devil and couldn’t take his full weight any longer.
Ariel threw off her cloak. “You had no right to do that!” She had lost all desire to be conciliatory. Of course, he wouldn’t understand, whatever words she used. Anyone who could ride roughshod over her the way he had just done couldn’t be trusted to understand anything. “Those are my horses. They’re not yours. They don’t belong to you. You have no rights over them.”
“My dear girl,” he interrupted with a raised hand. “According to the laws of marriage, what belongs to you belongs also to me.”
“So you are going to claim my horses.” she said bitterly.
“No, of course I’m not. I have no interest in your damned horses,” he snapped, realizing that this issue would get them seriously off track. “I am, however, interested in what’s been going on in that devious little head of yours since the moment you knelt at the altar. If you wanted to move your stud, why the hell didn’t you discuss it with me first? You knew perfectly well I was prepared to accommodate them at Hawkesmoor Manor.”
Ariel was suddenly blinded with tears. How could she begin to explain the miserable tangle in this atmosphere? He wasn’t prepared to listen, let alone understand. It wasn’t even worth the effort. She turned aside, with an inarticulate gesture of frustration that Simon interpreted as curt dismissal.
His fingers curled into his palms as he fought his anger. He spoke slowly and unemphatically. “Very well. If you won’t explain to me, then let me tell you what I think has been going on.”
Ariel remained with her back to him, and he said with the same lack of emphasis, “Look at me, Ariel.”
As she turned to face him, dashing a hand across her eyes, everything fell into place. Her many evasions when he’d questioned her about her plans for her horses, her tense exchanges with Ranulf about his visits to the stables, the impressively scientific expertise of her breeding program, and most importantly the suspicion he’d had all along that Ariel had been holding herself back from this marriage.
All this time he had thought the betrayal would come from her brothers, when instead it had been his wife who’d been plotting the ultimate betrayal.
“Just when, my dear wife, did you intend to join your horses? Or were you going to depart with them tonight? Didn’t you even bother to leave me a note?” He glanced around the room with heavy sarcasm. “But perhaps I don’t even deserve an explanation for my wife’s desertion.”
Ariel stared at a knot in the paneling over his head, trying to pretend she was somewhere else. It was a technique she had perfected over the years when things became too ugly, but like so many others, it didn’t seem to work with the Hawkesmoor.
After a pause, Simon continued in the same tone, “At a rough guess, I would estimate that stud of yours in its present composition is worth maybe twenty thousand guineas, depending, of course, on the quality of the stallion. But I’m sure he’s a prime beast. You wouldn’t have truck with anything less than prime, would you, my dear?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Still silent? I must be on the right track then. I wonder where you were intending to set up your stud. I assume you have contacts already in the racing world. . . .”
Recognition flashed in her eyes and he said, “Ah, yes, I can see that I got that one right.”
He stopped suddenly, running a hand through his hair. “Dear God, Ariel Just what did you have in mind? A divorce? An annulment?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said tonelessly.
“Doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that this marriage was a sham from the very beginning? Of course,” he added acidly, “I was forgetting that you never intended it to be consummated! I can’t think why you didn’t help your brothers do away with me.”
Ariel flushed crimson. “That’s not just. I only wanted to be free to live the way I choose.”
“None of us has that freedom, girl,” he exclaimed harshly.
“I didn’t mean it quite like that Oh, what’s the use.”
She dashed the tears from her eyes again. “For once in my life, I wanted to be financially independent.”
He frowned. “As I recall, the marriage settlements allow for very generous financial provision for your needs.”
“But I’d still be accountable to you!” she fired at him with renewed energy. “I’d be dependent on a generosity that my brother compelled from you. And you know damn well why he did that, Hawkesmoor. It sure as hell wasn’t for my sake! It was to score a victory over you. Anyway, that money doesn’t belong to me, does it? It’s not produced by my own labor and skill. It’s char
ity. Pure sweet charity!”
“Well, that’s about as novel an interpretation of marriage settlements as I’ve heard.” Simon pushed himself away from his window-seat perch. “I can’t continue with this tonight. I’m too angry to think clearly.” He began to unbutton his coat. “Get undressed and go to bed, Ariel.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Then stay awake if you must. Do I have to lock the door?”
Ariel shrugged. “What difference does it make? I’m a prisoner in this marriage whether you make it obvious or not.”
He threw off the rest of his clothes and climbed into bed. He propped the pillows behind his head and regarded her set face and glittering eyes thoughtfully.
“If you’re going to be tempted to leave this room before morning, Ariel, I suggest you lock the door and bring me the key. I can’t answer for the consequences if you assert your independence again this evening.”
Ariel stalked to the door, turned the key, and hurled it onto the bed beside him. Then she slumped in the rocker beside the fire.
Simon pushed the key beneath his pillows and lay back, every nerve stretched toward the hunched figure in the dim firelight He was more hurt than he could have believed possible. He had thought she was beginning to open up to him, to offer him more of herself than her body. He thought he’d meant something to her. But all along she had been intending to leave him. Nothing he had said or done in the days since their marriage had penetrated the thicket she had planted around herself.
He could understand how she might long to escape her brothers’ tyranny. But it had never occurred to him that Ariel might see him too as a tyrant and view their marriage as a new prison. A prison she was determined to escape at whatever cost.
Helene crept away from the door. She had never heard Simon speak with such bitterness. But because she knew him, she had heard the hurt that fueled the corrosive anger. And she wanted to slap the silly chit of a girl who would reject what Simon was offering for something as sterile as financial independence.
Chapter Twenty-Two
SIMON AWOKE AT dawn. Automatically he ran a hand over the space beside him. It was cold and empty and he realized why he was feeling so leaden. The previous night’s miserable business played over in his head as he hauled himself up into a half-sitting position against the headboard.
Ariel was lying fully clothed on the truckle bed, the thin blanket pulled up to her chin, her gloved hands crossed over her breast. Her eyes were closed, the lashes dark half-moons against her pale cheeks.
Simon watched her sleep. Even asleep her jaw and mouth had an obstinate set. This was what he had won through his mission of peace.
He threw off the covers and struggled to his feet. His body groaned, his leg shrieked as it took his weight. It had been a while since his mornings had been quite so bad, but then, he’d missed Ariel’s ministrations last night.
He stood over the truckle bed, trying to decide if she was really asleep. If not, it was a decent imitation. He dressed slowly, ran a hand over his unshaven chin, and decided it would have to wait.
He took the key from under his pillow, hobbled to the door, and let himself out of the chamber. If Ariel was truly afraid of Ranulf’s stealing her horses, then her husband had better do something about it.
The doors to the Great Hall stood open, and he limped through the busy servants setting the place to rights, and stepped out into the courtyard. The fog had dissipated, but the moisture was still heavy in the air and the ground was sodden.
The dogs bounded to greet him as he entered the stable-yard. Edgar stood in the doorway to the Arabians’ block. He chewed on his straw and watched the earl’s approach.
“Morning, Edgar.”
“Mornin’, m’lord.” Edgar’s face and voice were expressionless.
“We had better do something about Lady Ariel’s horses,” Simon said without preamble. “Are they really in danger from Lord Ravenspeare?”
“’E’s took a mare in foal already.”
Simon nodded. “Walk me through them, Edgar, and tell me what special accommodations they’re going to need. Then we’ll arrange to have them transported to Hawkesmoor Manor.”
“An’ ’ow does Lady Ariel feel about that, if I might be so bold, m’lord?” Edgar didn’t move from the doorway.
“I believe she will see the advantages,” Simon responded evenly.
Edgar stepped aside, although reluctance stiffened every line of his body, and the two men entered the block together.
Ariel waited until Simon’s step had faded in the passage before she sat up. She pushed aside the blanket and swung her legs over the edge of the cot. But instead of getting up, she sat on the edge and stared down at her stockinged feet.
She hadn’t slept for more than five minutes at any one time during the interminable night. Her eyes felt as if they’d been scoured with lye, and her throat prickled with all the unshed tears that had gathered and been swallowed.
What was she supposed to do now? For some reason she could no longer get up any indignation, let alone rage, over the collapse of her life’s ambition. It now seemed completely trivial beside Simon’s autocratic blindness. He had made no attempt to understand why her independence meant so much to her. He had not even considered that she might have been afraid to confide in him.
He had made no attempt to consider that all her experiences hitherto might have made her wary . . . that with one word of understanding last night he could have won her complete trust. Instead he’d trampled all over her with the full force of his authority—no different from her father, no different from Ranulf.
A soft tap at the door brought her head up with a snap. “Who is it?”
“Helene. May I come in, my dear?”
Ariel jumped up, pushing the truckle bed back beneath the fourposter with her foot. She wasn’t prepared to advertise that she hadn’t slept in her husband’s bed. She ran her hands through her tumbled hair, then gave up the attempt to make herself look less disheveled. She’d slept in her clothes and looked it. “Yes.”
Helene came into the room. She was in dishabille, but fresh and tidy, her hair falling down her back in a well-brushed skein; her face looked older, more worn in the harsh gray light of dawn.
“Forgive me, Ariel, but I couldn’t help overhearing last night.”
Ariel flushed crimson. “How . . . how . . . I didn’t realize we were speaking so loudly.”
Helene had the grace to blush, but it was only a faint reddening and Ariel barely remarked it. “I know Simon very well, my dear. And perhaps I can help you understand him. I don’t mean to be impertinent, to step in where I’m not welcome, but if I can help, I hope you’ll let me. Believe me, my interests are of the purest.”
She took Ariel’s hands in a warm clasp. “Come into my chamber, my dear. My maid has brought tea and you look sadly in need of something to warm you.”
Her voice was so filled with genuine concern and understanding, Ariel felt some of her weariness lift. She had always faced alone the upheavals and complications of her life, and there was something ineffably comforting in sharing this misery with this gentle older woman, who was Simon’s confidante, who had been his lover, who had known him from childhood.
She allowed herself to be drawn out of her own cold, miserable chamber filled with the sourness of bad feelings, and into Helene’s room, where the fire was blazing and a tray of tea waited.
“Sit down by the fire.” Helene poured tea. “Explain to me what happened last night,” she invited, handing Ariel a cup. “I heard raised voices. Simon was angry, and he very rarely gets angry.”
Ariel cupped her hands around the hot teacup, inhaling the steam. She propped her stockinged feet on the fender and offered her description of the night’s events.
“It’s only now that I realize how much I was hoping he would be different from other men,” she said when the narrative was complete. “I know I’m different from other women, and sometimes he’s said that he understan
ds what’s made me the way I am, but understanding isn’t accepting, is it?” She looked up at Helene, sitting opposite.
Helene sipped her tea. “Simon is one of the most understanding and unusual men I’ve ever met,” she said slowly. “And you, my dear, are extraordinarily lucky to have him for husband. He will give you all the kindness and consideration a wife could possibly expect. Surely you can give him that in return?”
Ariel set down her teacup. Her face was very white, her heavy eyes as clear as a rain-washed dawn sky. “Kindness and consideration aren’t enough, Helene. They’re lukewarm emotions, all very well in their place. But I want much more. I want the kind of understanding and acceptance that comes from love.” Her voice didn’t waver as she spoke the truth as she had only now understood it.
Helene reached over and took her hands again. “Don’t wish for the moon, child. Believe me, companionship, friendship, kindness, loyalty, are as precious as anything. And Simon will give you all of those things.”
“But not love?” Ariel’s voice was still steady.
Helene squeezed her hands. “My dear, he’s a Hawkesmoor. Your father killed his father. He can feel warmth, affection for you, but there can never be room in his heart for a Ravenspeare.”
“He told you this?”
“In those very words,” Helene said quietly.
“Thank you.” Ariel gently pulled her hands free and stood up. “I knew it, of course. If you’ll excuse me now, I have some household matters to attend to.” She smiled distantly at Helene and went back to her own chamber.
When Simon returned fifteen minutes later, Ariel was sitting at the dresser, brushing her hair. Her plain gown of dark brown linen did nothing to alleviate her pallor. She didn’t turn from the mirror, but her heavy-lidded eyes met his in the glass as he came up behind her.
“I’ve been talking with Edgar . . . making arrangements to remove the stud to Hawkesmoor,” Simon stated. She looked so wretched he almost forgot his own hurt and disappointment. Almost put his arms around her, his fingertips itching to soothe her swollen eyelids.