Trapped at the Altar (26 page)

Ariadne glanced up at the rain-sodden sky. “It'll be dark soon.”

“Then we'll have to stay there 'till daybreak,” he said briskly. “Come now, Ari, it's not like you to lose heart.”

“I'm not,” she denied, “but I'm cold and wet to the bone, as are we all.”

“Then mount up and follow me. I'll have a fire lit soon enough.” He rode over to the coach to talk to the laboring men.

“Can you get on Sphinx, Tilly?” Ari led the horse over to the boulder. “Stand on the rock and climb up behind me.” She mounted, holding the horse steady as Tilly scrambled onto his back behind her. Ivor nodded and took the lead, heading along the track the way he'd come.

The barn was little more than a rough shack, which, judging by the smell, had once housed goats. It had a loft, though, reached through a rickety ladder. “We can sleep up there,” Ari said instantly. “And the men can stay down here. The horses can bed down in the sheds over there.”

“There should be enough dry bedding inside the coach.” Ivor was relieved to see Ariadne return to her usual assertive self. She'd looked such a miserable, half-drowned waif when he'd seen her on her rock a few minutes earlier that he'd felt a stab of anxiety. She was such a diminutive creature, she'd looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away, huddled and shivering in her soaked cloak.

“Tilly and I will light a fire, if you get some of the men to bring in the bags that have bedding and provisions.” She unclasped her sodden cloak, holding it away from
her with an air of distaste. “If we can get a really good fire going, maybe we can dry some of this stuff.”

“Can't light a fire without wood,” Tilly stated, looking around. “Where are we goin' to find dry timber around here?”

“I'll check the sheds,” Ivor said swiftly. It wouldn't do for Tilly to lose heart, either. “Stay here. I'll be back in a minute.”

Ariadne climbed the rickety ladder to the loft. The roof seemed intact, and it was dry, at least, and the floor, although dusty, seemed clean enough. “We're in luck, Tilly,” she called down. “There's a pile of straw here, and it doesn't seem too moldy. Come on up and help me fashion a mattress.”

Tilly climbed the ladder, her head poking through the hole in the floor as she surveyed the loft. “Certainly seems dry enough,” she conceded, bringing the rest of her body into the low space. She tackled the straw, and Ari left her to it, going back down just as Ivor returned with an armful of wood.

“It's damp, but I think it'll take eventually.” He dropped the wood in the center of the shed. “We need something to get it to light.”

“If we break that up . . .” Ari pointed to a wooden feeding trough. “It would act as kindling. It seems dry enough.”

Within an hour, the fire was lit, and the men came in, divesting themselves of their dripping cloaks. The coach, newly mended, was outside, the horses tethered in the sheds with nose bags.

Tilly was stirring the aromatic contents of a large copper kettle set on a trivet over the fire. She looked up as the men entered and said sharply, “Before you all get too comfortable, someone fetch me the sack of potatoes from the coach and that bag o' flour. These rabbits had little enough on 'em to feed us all, but a few potatoes and some nice 'erb dumplings will bulk it up. Oh,” she added, as one of the men turned to go outside again. “And I think I spotted some carrot tops over by the side of that shed. Overgrown, most like, left over from someone's garden, but better than nothing, I reckon. And,” she added as an afterthought over her shoulder, “more water, if I'm to make dumplings.”

Tilly's word was law on this journey. She was the source of all domestic comfort, dispensing food, medicine, and advice freely, and she seemed to relish her role. It was vastly different from her subservient position in Daunt valley, where, like most of the women, her job was to keep her mouth shut and do as she was told while attending to the men's needs.

Two of the men set up a beer keg in one corner of the shack, and the men gathered around with pitch-coated leather tankards. Ivor opened a flagon of wine and poured two cups. “Ari?” He held out one cup.

“Thank you.” She took it, drawing closer to the fire.

“Are you warmer now?” he asked, standing beside her.

“Yes, much. And if we can keep the fire in all night, we should have dry clothes by morning.” Cloaks were spread out around the fire, steaming gently. She would have liked to change out of her damp riding habit, but
their quarters were too crowded and confined to make that practical.

“We'll keep it in,” Ivor assured her. “The men will sleep around it, and someone will have sufficient interest in keeping it fed.” He drank from his cup, staring sightlessly into the fire.

Ariadne hugged her arms around her, taking occasional sips from her cup, wondering how this strange awkwardness had come upon them. They were uncomfortable with each other, their conversations stilted at best but mostly just simple exchanges of information or instruction. Ivor was no longer the careless, happy-go-lucky companion of her childhood or the comfortable confidant of later years. And the memory of those few nights of lovemaking was so distant and indistinct they might not have happened at all. Ever since that night when he'd said that without her feeling love, making love meant nothing to him, he had made no move to touch her, even when their sleeping arrangements afforded them the privacy. Every night, she dutifully took a spoonful of Tilly's potion, but she was beginning to wonder if there was any point to it anymore. She was certainly in no danger of conceiving at the moment.

She moved away from him as the men came back with Tilly's shopping list, and taking out her knife, began to peel potatoes. At least while she was doing something useful, she felt less bereft. She could feel Ivor's eyes on her as she bent to her task, but after a moment, he turned away from the fire and went to join the men at the beer keg.

Tilly glanced once at Ariadne, a sharp, shrewd assessment, before she returned to chopping ancient, wrinkled carrots and their green tops into the stew. Most nights, she slept in the same space as the married couple. When they were lucky enough to find an inn with a separate bedchamber, she slept on a mattress outside the door. But she was fairly certain that for the last several weeks, there had been little activity in the marriage bed. Miss Ari was looking peaky and unhappy, Sir Ivor sometimes black as a thunder sky.

The rain began to let up as night fell. Ivor lit the lanterns, and the little shack took on qualities of warmth and comfort and safety that in the daylight would have seemed impossible. Tilly dished up rabbit stew and dumplings, the beer and wine flowed, and the Daunt men ate and drank, sang and joked, leaning back on piles of baggage, as easy and comfortable as if at their own fireside.

These men had spent many a worse night, Ariadne reflected, watching them from her own corner of the fire. They had sat out on frozen beaches with their lanterns, drawing ships onto the rocks; they had raided farms at black of night, they had robbed horsemen and carriages on the wilds of Bodmin Moor and returned to the valley at dawn, as merry as Robin Hood's men. Although none of their spoils went from the rich to the poor.

She stole a glance at Ivor. He, too, seemed at his ease, as if he'd shared in those dubious adventures, but he never had. He had never been included in anything outside the law, and now, of course, they knew why. They were to be
respectable, their respectability based on a midden of ill-gotten gains. Her mouth twisted at the cynical reflection. But it could be argued that without the repression and persecution of Cromwell's Protectorate, the Daunt family would have continued on the path of righteousness.

It could be argued.

She drained her wine cup and stood up. “Tilly, we should go to bed.”

Tilly, who was dozing happily in the warmth, soothed by a tankard of beer, blinked and nodded, hauling herself to her feet. “Right, Miss Ari.”

Ivor stood up. “Are you going to bed?”

“It's time,” Ariadne said. “And we should make an early start.”

He nodded. “I'll sleep down here with the men tonight. We should be safe enough, but we'll set a guard anyway.” He moved to the ladder, holding it steady for her as she stepped onto the bottom rung. “I'll call you at dawn.”

She nodded. “Good night, then.” Her tone was bleak, but she turned her face away from him and climbed up into the loft, Tilly following behind.

Ivor stood for a moment, his hand on the ladder. He ached to go up to her, ached to hold her again, just to feel her warm against him as she slept. But there was a coldness in his breast that wouldn't melt. He knew he was punishing them both with this restraint—or rejection, he wasn't sure what to call it—but he couldn't seem to help himself.

He couldn't let down his guard and simply enjoy what she would give him. It wasn't enough. Long ago, he had believed that the people who cared for him, who told him
they loved him, had meant it. He had believed their caresses were true expressions of love and protection. At the age of six, he had discovered the lie, abandoned with no warning among hostile strangers by the people he had trusted. He wasn't prepared to make the same mistake twice. He could not trust Ariadne to be true to him; she had told him as much. He needed to know that she was bound to him not by duty or the need to make the best of the situation but because she wanted to be,
needed
to be. Because she loved him truly and not just in the ways of friendship.

He would not love alone. He could not afford to be so vulnerable again.

T
hey approached the city just before dusk on a mild November day by the road to New Gate. The road was wide enough for two-way traffic, and the Daunt party met a stream of carts, carriages, and horsemen leaving the city for the evening before the gates were closed at curfew.

Tilly sat wide-eyed on her seat on the box by the coachman as the procession of folk of every class and creed flowed past them. Merchants in fine linen jostled with barrow boys in filthy jerkins, farmers drove empty carts, their day's produce sold, and milkmaids drove cows and goats back from the city, where they had been selling fresh milk to the city's inhabitants.

The stone edifice of New Gate reared up before them, their entrance through the city walls into the strange and unknown life within its warren of lanes and alleyways, busy markets, and quieter green spaces through which the mighty River Thames flowed, as bustling a thoroughfare as any of the main London streets.

Ariadne was too busy for a few moments calming Sphinx, who was objecting vigorously to the crowds around him, to take much stock of her surroundings as they passed through the double roadway of the gate. She was aware of the foul stink, however, emanating from the grim buildings of the prison piled atop the gate and stretching to either side. And she could hear the mournful wails of the prisoners drifting from barred windows onto the fetid air of the late afternoon.

Ivor rode just ahead of her. His back was ramrod straight, his eyes everywhere. He spoke to the watchmen in the gatehouse, showing the safe conduct pass that Lord Daunt had given him, one of a package of letters of introduction intended to smooth their path in this alien land. The watchmen waved them through, the last travelers to enter the city before they closed the gates in the wall until daybreak.

The street that took them within the walls was teeming with activity, even though the gates were now closed. Sphinx bridled and pranced as an iron-wheeled carriage pulled by a team of great cart horses emerged from an alleyway. The coachman cursed as he saw that the gates were closed, a fluent stream of violent language pouring from his lips. Tilly cowered, pulling the hood of her cloak tighter over her head.

“I suppose you know where we're going?” Ari asked, bringing Sphinx up beside Turk.

Ivor shot her a look that in a previous life would have made her chuckle. But they didn't do much laughing these days. “Holborn,” he said shortly. “Close to Lincoln's
Inn Fields. An inn, which your uncle says is commodious and will make a decent base until your wardrobe is completed and we can find suitable lodgings closer to Whitehall.”

They threaded their way through the streets, through men spilling from taverns on either side, past two men brawling in a fetid courtyard surrounded by a crowd of cheering boys. Both Turk and Sphinx reared as a dancing bear was led past them on the end of a chain, and Ari turned her head aside. There were cruelties aplenty in the countryside, but somehow in these stinking, mean lanes they seemed worse.

After what seemed endless twists and turns, a green space opened up in front of them, a white-plastered building at its corner. A cluster of gray stone buildings ranged along two sides of the space, and men in the somber black gowns of the legal profession crossed the green between the buildings. The sign of the King's Head hung from the plastered building, and it seemed to be doing a vigorous trade with both the black-clad lawyers and the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen gathering on the forecourt. Ivor gestured to the coachman to drive through the archway to the stable yard beyond, and he drew rein at the front door. He turned to give his hand to Ariadne to help her dismount.