The Silver Rose (35 page)

Simon’s nose wrinkled at the fetid breath issuing from the black hole of the peddler’s mouth. He was about to send him about his business when his eye fell on a small carved horse buried amid the jumble of colored glass, beads, and scarves. He picked it out with fastidious fingers and laid it on the palm of his hand.

“Genuine whalebone, m’lord,” the peddler said eagerly. “I knew the very sailorman what catched the whale. Big as the Tower o’ Lunnon, ’e said. ’E carved this off a rib. ’Uge ribs, they ’ave . . . or so I’m told.” His voice faded as he saw his potential customer wasn’t listening but was examining the object with considerable interest.

It was a very beautiful object, carved in full gallop, and the flowing mane, lovingly delineated, seemed to undulate with life and movement. The clean lines of the body rippled with muscular power. The dull ivory color of the bone had an opalescence to it. It seemed to emit a soft glow that breathed life into the carving.

Simon wondered what it was that reminded him so much of Ariel . . . whether it was the life and power of the horse, or its simple, unadorned beauty, or its creamy sheen. His fingers closed over it as it lay on his palm, and he reached with his free hand into his pocket. “How much?”

The peddler’s eyes narrowed to a calculating gleam. “’Alf a guinea, m’lord. Seein’ as there’s not another like it. The sailorman what carved it drownded.” His mouth twisted into a travesty of a sorrowful grimace.

“I’ll give you half a crown.” It seemed somewhat unchivalrous to bargain over the price of a wedding gift to his bride, but Simon couldn’t bring himself to accept being cheated by this unsavory individual, who was as likely to have robbed the sailor and helped him on his way to his heavenly reward as to have come by any of his wares honestly.

“I dunno I can go that low, sir,” the man whined. “I’ve got ten nippers an’ the wife’s mortal bad. Three shillin’ an’ we’ll call it a deal.” He held out a filth-encrusted claw to shake on the bargain.

Simon glanced around. Ariel was pushing her way toward them. “Here.” He slapped a crown into the man’s filthy palm and turned away from him.

“They didn’t have venison, but they had goose and bacon. They smelled so wonderful, I couldn’t resist.” Ariel proffered a steaming pie even as she bit into the flaky crust of her own. “And there’s a gingerbread stall,” she mumbled through a mouthful. “But I didn’t have enough money. We can go back, though. They had little marchpane figures. Oh, and there’s a snake charmer. Truly . . . He has a real snake and it curls out of the basket when he plays the flute.”

Simon ate his pie, listening to her excited babble, smiling to himself. While her pleasure delighted him, it also saddened him a little. It showed how much her childhood had lacked the simple joys of ordinary growing.

“Come and see the snake charmer.” Dusting flakes of pastry from her hands, she took his arm and led him into the fray, still chattering. Everything fascinated her; it was as if she had lost several layers of defensive shell, Simon thought, allowing himself to be pulled hither and thither as sights caught her attention, or the enticing wares of a food stall set her juices running.

It was midafternoon when he finally managed to drag her away, back to the Bear Inn. “It’ll be dusk before we get back, and we have to pick up that misbegotten nag, if he’s still there.”

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten about him.” Ariel was suddenly sober, almost as if she were replacing the layers of responsibility she had shed during the day. She shivered, cold in the late afternoon chill as her exuberance left her. It was time to go back. She had a lot to arrange in a very short time.

“You’re cold.” Simon took her hand. “We’ll go into the inn and have a tankard of porter before facing the ride back.”

Ariel let her hand lie in his, but he felt it as a passive gesture rather than one with any feeling to it. He cast a sidelong glance at her. The day’s glow had faded from her cheeks, and the brightness of her eyes was now dulled. Her mouth was set.

“Do you not want to go back?” he asked on impulse, lightly brushing her taut mouth with a fingertip. “If you like, we could stay in town for the night. I’ll send a message to Ravenspeare.”

Her heart jumped. A night with just the two of them in an anonymous chamber of the town’s best inn? But she could no longer lose herself in the ephemeral dream of pleasure. She had to get her horses out of Ravenspeare. Her horses and herself.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. But it’s up to you.”

Ariel bit her lip. “All the wedding guests . . .” she murmured vaguely. “And I can’t leave the household to manage alone. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Of course not,” he said, smoothly agreeable, not a hint of his puzzled frustration showing in voice or expression. “But before we go back, I have a wedding present for you.”

“Oh. But . . . but when . . . how . . . when did you buy it?” She stared at him in astonishment, having completely forgotten their earlier conversation.

Simon took a deep draught of porter from the leather tankard at his elbow. “When you weren’t looking.” He drew the whalebone horse from his coat pocket and placed it carefully on the counter.

“Oh, how lovely!” Ariel exclaimed, as he had known she would. She picked it up and held it to the light slanting through the mullioned window. “How it glows . . . how it moves!” She turned a radiant face up to him. “It’s the most beautiful present I could ever imagine having. Thank you.” Leaning over, she kissed his cheek and it felt a more intimate caress than the most passionate kisses she had showered on him in the privacy of the bedchamber.

For a moment her eyes held his and he thought he read a question in the gray gaze, then the shutters came down again and she said politely, “It really is very lovely. It was very clever of you to find it.” She stood up, shaking down the skirt of her riding habit. “We should go before it gets dark.”

They said almost nothing throughout the cold ride back to Ravenspeare, both lost in their own thoughts. Ariel held the bone horse tightly in her gloved hand.

The queen’s gift was grazing placidly where they’d left him. Reluctantly, Ariel mounted him and again he sighed and creaked in weary protest. “Never mind,” she said, reaching down to pat his curved neck. “From now on you can live a life of luxury. Bran mash, green pastures, and no one will ever mount you again.” The nag whinnied and almost picked up his hooves as if in perfect understanding of this promise.

When they reached the stableyard, Ariel said she wanted to make her evening rounds of her horses. Simon hesitated, wanting to suggest that he accompany her, but she had swung on her heel and strode off before he could open his mouth.

“What the hell is going on with you, girl?”
Simon muttered. If something was troubling her, why would she not confide in him? He’d surely done nothing to give her cause for mistrust. Exasperation warred with unease as he limped away toward the castle, from where the sounds of merriment were already floating on the night air.

Edgar came out of the gloom to greet his mistress as she slipped into the warm, brazier-lit stable. “Good even, m’lady.”

“Good evening, Edgar. Is everything all right? No unexpected visitors while I was gone? No sounds of trespass? No signs of anything untoward?”

“Nothin’, m’lady.” Edgar leaned against a stall, sucking the inevitable straw. “We patrolled every half hour last night, an’ the dogs were in ’ere, on watch the ’ole time. But I ’aven’t seen the ’ounds today.”

“Oh, Lord, I forgot!” Ariel exclaimed. “They must still be shut up in my chamber. I’ll let them out directly and they can roam loose again tonight. We must keep our guard up until I can arrange to ship all the horses out to Derek.” She began to walk up the aisle, pausing at each stall, recognizing the individual shuffles and welcoming whickers of her stud. They were all so beautiful, glossy with health.

Where was the mare in foal? A wave of impotent fury rocked her, and unbidden tears of loss and rage pricked behind her eyes. How
dared
anyone take what was hers? The theft was more than a nuisance, more than a simple statement of power. It was a violation of her self. No one would ever, ever have that power over her again.

“It will be new moon the day after tomorrow,” she said, her voice clipped. “We will move them that night. Have the men bring three barges to the dock in the morning and we’ll ship them out before midnight. My brothers and their guests will be well gone in drink by then. We’ll need at least six men to move the horses quickly and quietly. Can you arrange that?”

“Aye,” Edgar agreed, phlegmatic as always.

Ariel frowned to herself. It should be safe enough, once the revelry in the hall had reached its peak. But she would have to slip away from Simon.

Her hand slid into her pocket and closed around the
beautiful bone horse. Tears pricked behind her eyes and with an angry gesture she dashed them away with her free hand and went back outside into the cold.

Oliver Becket lurched through the arch into the stable-yard as Ariel appeared. His head felt as huge and swollen as a decaying pumpkin, about to burst and spew forth its rotting seeds. The noise and smells in the Great Hall had become intolerable, and he’d stumbled out into the air, hoping to calm his roiling stomach and soothe his pounding head. He was accustomed to getting drunk, but this was the worst he had ever felt. Common sense told him that wasn’t the case. The mind had the devil’s own ability to spread the gentle blanket of amnesia over the more unpleasant consequences of excess.

He tossed his wig to the ground, put his head under the pump, and worked the handle, sending a stream of icy water over his head and down his back, soaking his clothes; and his head, while it still ached, began to clear.

He let go the pump handle and straightened, throwing off the freezing water with a shake. He blinked water from his eyes, staring blearily at Ariel, who came across the yard toward him.

“You look as if you’ve been for a swim.” She greeted him unsmiling, her voice level. “Hardly wise in these temperatures. If you’ve the headache, I can give you a powder.”

Her accurate diagnosis of his condition did little to improve it. Anger knotted his chest. An anger that swelled to a crimson rage as he looked at her. She returned his gaze steadily, and he knew that she no longer saw the man who for a twelvemonth had been her lover. Once she had looked at him with smiling eyes, tentatively expressing her desire. He had become accustomed to the idea that she was his for the taking, ready and willing whenever he thought to snap his fingers.

But now she looked at him and there was no hiding that she didn’t like what she saw. Her disdain shone from her
clear gray eyes, radiated from every still, straight line of her lissome frame.

He had a sudden vivid image of her at the table the previous evening. Crimson and gold, lusciously sensual, her eyes filled with the mischievous promising pleasure that used to be for him alone. But now it had a different object. He’d watched her turn the full power of that sensuality upon the Hawkesmoor, and only then had Oliver Becket understood what he’d taken for granted, mocked even, certainly underestimated when, with her brother’s connivance, he had possessed the little Ravenspeare.

He remembered now, and it was gall and wormwood, the way she’d played with the Hawkesmoor last evening—that private, wicked little game they’d played together. He had seen the moment when pleasure had overwhelmed her, had recognized the sudden relaxation, the transfiguration of her face, the suddenly heavy eyelids, the glow of her skin. And the smug satisfaction of the Hawkesmoor had been a twisting knife in his gut.

For a minute he was speechless, impotent with rage. He stared at her, imagining her body joined with the Hawkesmoor’s. His nostrils flared as if he could scent the odors of sex clinging to her.

Ariel unconsciously took a step backward, away from him. From the naked viciousness in his eyes, the taut malevolence in his set face. “Are you ill, Oliver?” She tried to sound normal, to keep the unease from her voice.

“Sickened by the sight of you,” he said in a low rasp. “Are you enjoying the Hawkesmoor, Ariel? Does he know what to do to make you whimper . . . to make you . . .”

She listened for too long as he continued with a stream of soft vile obscenities that smirched her just by their sound. But somehow she couldn’t move away, couldn’t even turn her eyes aside from the dreadful hating glare of his bloodshot gaze.

Neither of them was aware of the silent spectator, of the moment when the earl of Hawkesmoor moved out of the shadows
of the archway leading to the inner court. The intense tableau was shattered when his silver-knobbed cane smacked down across Oliver Becket’s shoulders. Oliver reeled sideways with a yell that sounded more surprised than pained. He stumbled to one knee. A hand grabbed the back of his collar and hauled him upright.

“If there is one thing I cannot abide, Becket, it’s a foul mouth in the presence of women.” The earl’s easy voice sounded as mellifluous as honey after the vileness of Oliver’s tirade. Ariel shook her head as if to rid herself of the slimy tendrils of Oliver’s malevolence.