Castle of the Heart (17 page)

“I thank you, my lord,” she stammered, not
knowing what else to say to him. His glowing blue eyes still held
hers, and Arianna felt as though they were suspended in time, there
in the misty green of a Welsh spring, until Cristin’ s clear voice
broke the spell that had held her in thrall to Thomas’s gaze.

“I think she has found what she’s looking
for,” Thomas said, laughing.

A moment later they caught up with Cristin
and Benet, who had dismounted by the stream that Arianna had heard
earlier. Cristin’s skirts were muddy as she knelt on the verge,
gathering the cress that grew with its roots in the icy water.

“Look at it all,” Cristin cried. “There’s
enough for a huge salad. Joan will be so pleased.”

“Leave enough that it will grow back later,”
Benet advised, bending to help her.

“Of course I will, I know what I’m doing.
Arianna, bring your basket, too.”

Thomas helped Arianna to dismount, his eyes
holding hers again as he did so, and she felt a sudden, nearly
irresistible desire to melt into his arms. She quickly suppressed
the urge. He let her go the moment her feet touched the ground,
taking his hands off her waist abruptly and catching the reins of
her horse, and his, to drape them around a sapling. Then the two of
them went to do Cristin’s imperious bidding, Thomas laughing and
teasing his cousin until Cristin splashed him with water from the
stream and it seemed a mock battle would break out and they would
all be drenched.

Arianna joined in the fun. Watching Thomas
joking with Cristin and including Benet as though he were a friend
and not just a stableboy, she told herself that the magic she had
briefly felt, and had seen in Thomas’s eyes, was only friendship,
only his natural openheartedness. She was no more important to him
than Benet the stableboy, and she would do well to remember it. But
even that sobering thought could not dim her pleasure in the day,
or stop her laughter at Cristin’s impish jokes, and when at last
they returned to the castle, baskets and saddlebags full of cress
and a few delicate mushrooms that Benet had found, Arianna rode
between Thomas and Cristin, relaxed in the joy of easy friendship
and refusing to let herself think of anything more than that.

Selene ate salads constantly. She came to the
great hall eagerly, reaching with greedy anticipation for the bowl
Joan always kept ready for her, exclaiming with delight over each
new green or vegetable or blossom that appeared in her salad as the
spring progressed.

“I can’t get enough,” she said to Arianna.
“I’m hungry all the time. I’m growing fat. But at least eating is
some compensation for not being allowed to hunt. Thomas won’t let
me on a horse. He’s afraid I’ll be thrown and lose the babe.”

“Thomas is right,” Arianna said, and had
Thomas’s bright, flashing smile as reward for her support.

“Will you cut his hair?” Selene asked. “It
hasn’t been done since he was prepared for his knighting. You won’t
mind, will you, Thomas, if I don’t do it?”

“No, my love,” Thomas teased, kissing her
cheek. “You’d rather eat a salad of lettuce and parsley and tiny
violets or nasturtium buds, with Joan’s wonderful dressing on it,
wouldn’t you? In fact, you’d rather eat than do anything else at
all,” he added ruefully.

“Naturally,” Selene said, the spoon piled
high with chopped greens halfway to her mouth, the oily dressing
running over the side and dripping back into the bowl, “naturally,
I would not want to endanger the child. It’s you who told me I must
be careful, Thomas.”

“I don’t think it would hurt if we loved
occasionally. You aren’t sick any more.” Thomas whispered the words
into his wife’s ear, but Arianna heard them nonetheless. She rose
hastily from the table where the three of them had been sitting.
Thomas leaned nearer. “Selene, I need you.”

“I’ll get the scissors,” Arianna said in a
strained voice. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen garden, Thomas.”

A bench was there, near the wall, where the
late April sun shone brilliantly. Arianna sat down on it, raising
her face to the sun’s warmth, trying to empty her mind, resolutely
refusing to let herself think about the scene in the great hall and
Thomas’s whispered words to Selene. When he finally appeared in the
garden she put on the most serious face she could, and made him
straddle the bench at one end so she could walk around him as she
worked. Thomas pulled off his shirt and sat with bare shoulders,
his back to her. Arianna saw the smooth, hard muscles of his back
and shoulders and upper arms. As he had been working out of doors
since the first warm day, he was already lightly tanned, and his
golden body swam before Arianna’s eyes.

“Aren’t you going to start?” Thomas glanced
back over one shoulder and laughed at her. “Don’t look so
frightened. If you hurt me, I’ll scream and you can stop.”

“How -” She wanted to say, how can I do this,
how can I touch you, with you half-naked before me, and not put my
arms around you and tell you how much I want you? Thomas, Thomas,
my love. “How short do you want it?” she asked in a perfectly
ordinary voice.

“Just below my ears. Go ahead, girl, it’s not
hard. Just cut.”

She reached out and lifted a thick lock of
golden hair off the back of his neck. As she did, her fingers
brushed against the soft skin of his nape. She wanted to press her
lips there. Instead, she opened the scissors and began to cut. They
were the best and the sharpest in the castle, but like all
scissors, the blades did not close together very well, so the
cutting was an uncomfortable process of hacking, and sometimes
sawing, at Thomas’s hair. She did her best, concentrating on the
job before her, trying not to pull too hard and hurt him,
controlling her feelings, not letting herself think that this was
Thomas she was handling so intimately. At last she was
finished.

“There.” She sat down on the bench, wiping
the last few hairs off the scissors. Thomas stayed where he was,
still straddling the bench, brushing clipped hair off his
shoulders.

“Do I look like a courtier?” he asked,
teasing her.

“The very finest in the land.” She was amazed
that she could sound so lighthearted when she was so intensely
conscious of his nearness.

“You deserve a reward,” Thomas said, and
leaning forward he kissed her lips, very quickly. He kissed her a
second time, not so quickly, and Arianna felt all the longing she
had locked away rising up to threaten her new-found
contentment.

He did not put his arms around her, he made
no move to touch her with more than his mouth, but that was enough.
His bare shoulders were there, she could sense their sun-warmed
strength, though her eyes were closed, and she wanted to put her
hands on them. Instead, she clenched her fingers tightly together
in her lap. But her lips moved under his, wanting the richness of
emotion he had to offer, accepting it for just a while, for just
this little moment.

When he finally took his mouth away from
hers, Arianna looked down at the bench between them, too confused
to think clearly. She saw the bulge at his groin and hastily lifted
her eyes, to meet his amused, deep blue glance.

“You should only kiss your wife,” Arianna
said, trying hard to sound stern and failing miserably.

“I would,” Thomas told her, “if only Selene
would kiss me back, but she won’t. She’s afraid for the child.”

“Then talk to Meredith. Tell her your
problem, and have her speak to Selene. She may be able to help you.
I can’t.” Her voice was sharper than she had meant it to be. His
kiss, and the last hour of physical closeness, had too easily
broken down the flimsy barriers she had erected about her heart
over the last months. She was afraid of what she was feeling, and
of what his need might do to her.

She started to rise from the bench, to flee
from him to some safe spot until she could compose herself, but his
hand on her elbow kept her in her place.

“Arianna, I did not mean to offend you. I
would do no harm to you, and I would never betray Selene. The kiss
was only a joke, like a forfeit during Christmas games, and this,”
he made a gesture, vaguely indicating the lower half of his body,
“this is but the result of unwanted abstinence and the close
presence of a lovely girl. You are a good friend to Selene, and I
have begun to think of you as something like a sister. I don’t want
that to change. Please forgive what I could not help.”

“I understand, Thomas.” She did, all too
well. His need was for Selene, not for her. She took a deep breath,
sealed up her longing for him once more, and managed a smile. “Do
talk to Meredith. I’m sure there’s no need for you to be unhappy
all the long months until October. Now I must go to Reynaud.” She
rose, and he let her leave. She glanced back when she had reached
the garden gate. He was still sitting on the bench, bare
shouldered, staring at the neat rows of vegetables, at lettuce and
parsley and tiny new cabbages, those same green, sprouting things
among which, to give him ease, she would gladly have thrown
herself, pulling him with her, if only his need had been for
her.

“I should leave Afoncaer,” Arianna said.
“Each time he speaks to me, or shows me a kindness, every time I am
near to him, it grows harder. I have tried to fight what I feel,
but I can’t do it any longer.”

“‘You can.” Meredith’s hands were strong on
her arms. For all she was a small woman, Meredith turned the taller
Arianna around easily, the quick movement making the bunches of
drying herbs swing above their heads. The medicine Meredith was
making bubbled softly over a tiny brazier set on a stone table,
sending forth a heavy, bitter scent. They had been in the middle of
a lesson when Arianna had broken down at Meredith’s mention of
Thomas’s name.

“Let me leave here,” Arianna whispered.
“There must be a convent somewhere that would take me if you would
recommend me.”

“A convent?” Selene stood at the stillroom
door. “Why should you want to leave Afoncaer?”

“She’s only feeling a little discouraged,”
Meredith said quickly. “What is it you want, Selene? I have never
seen you in the stillroom before, though you are certainly welcome
here.” Both Meredith’s face and voice expressed her surprise,
effectively drawing Selene’s attention from Arianna to herself.

“There is some trouble in the kitchen that
needs your attention. I told Joan I would fetch you.”

“Thank you, I’ll go at once. Arianna, stay
here and stir this,” Meredith said, indicating the bubbling pot.
“Don’t let it simmer any faster than it has been. Are you coming
with me, Selene?”

“No, you go on,” Selene responded carelessly.
“I want to speak with Arianna.” When Meredith had left, Selene came
a little further into the room, wrinkling her nose at the medicinal
smell.

“What nasty stuff,” Selene murmured. She
looked sharply at Arianna. “Why did you say just now that you
wanted to enter a convent?”

“How much did you hear?” Arianna asked
cautiously.

“Just that. You must ask my permission if you
want to go, not Meredith’s. You were sent here with me. You may
have forgotten that, but I have not. Why do you spend so much time
in this tiny room?” Selene demanded. “Are you avoiding me?”

Arianna had indeed been avoiding Selene, and
Thomas, too. She could not forget Thomas’s kiss, and felt that by
allowing it she had betrayed Selene’s confidence and
friendship.

“You would rather be with Meredith, wouldn’t
you?” Selene went on. “Or with that dreadful Reynaud. But you are
supposed to be my companion. Mine, not theirs. I will not give you
leave to go from Afoncaer, and I insist that you spend more of each
day with me.

“Why don’t you answer me?” Selene had been
speaking in her most arrogant tones, but now a change came over
her. Her eyes filled with tears and she began to plead. “Don’t go,
Arianna. You are my only friend. Don’t leave me alone in this
hateful place. I’m so afraid. What if I die when my child is
born?”

Arianna put her arms around the small, stiff
figure, comforting Selene and recalling her promise to Lady Aloise
to look after this strange, difficult young woman. Selene was right
to be frightened. The specter of death in childbirth was real.
Selene needed her. So did Meredith, and Reynaud. She was caught,
held by her love for all of them. She would have to learn to bear
the pain of the one love she did not want and put Thomas out of her
heart and her thoughts. She would have to find a way to do
that.

“I won’t leave you,” Arianna promised. “I’ll
stay with you, Selene, for as long as you want me to.”

The lovely days of that warm spring
degenerated into a cold, rainy summer. Crops rotted in the fields.
Fruits and nuts fell from the trees before their time, and lay in
sodden, stinking heaps across the landscape.

“There will be famine next winter,” Guy said
in late August. “There is little fodder for the animals. Even the
hogs will starve; there will be nothing for them to root up.
Everything is spoiling and decaying. Geoffrey has the same problem
at Tynant.”

“What about Kelsey or Adderbury?” Thomas
suggested. Adderbury was Guy’s desmesne in England, inherited from
his father and his brother Lionel, while Kelsey had belonged to
Meredith’s late father, Lord Ranaulf. “Are conditions better at
those places? Can we bring in supplies from either one to see us
through the winter?”

“I did think of sending someone to see how
both are faring. I don’t suppose you would care to go?”

“I would indeed. I’m not much use around here
until my son is born.”

“Son, is it? Still?” Guy grinned at the
younger man, and Thomas smiled back, shaking his head.

“Selene is absolutely certain it’s a boy.
Uncle Guy, I need some activity, something to do, or I’ll go
mad.”