At the top table, Ariel sat beside her husband, acknowledging the toasts, the increasingly ribald jests, the jocular good wishes of her brothers' friends with a smile that betrayed none of her true feelings. She had been exposed to this kind of company since earliest childhood. It had never occurred to her brothers to modify their behavior in her presence or to expect their friends to do so, and she no longer even heard the off-color remarks, the tasteless jokes. She was aware only of Oliver, sitting beside Ranulf, drinking deeply, his thin lips curved in his unsettling smile, the arch of his eyebrows exaggerated as his eyes became more unfocused. His eyes were unfocused but his gaze never wavered from the bride's face, and Ariel began to feel like an insect displayed in a case before the all-knowing scrutiny of a collector.
Beside her the earl of Hawkesmoor appeared to take the drunken revelry in his stride. He drank well himself, Ariel noticed, but without apparent ill effect. His cheeks weren't flushed, the scar on his face didn't become more livid, and his sea blue eyes were as clear as ever. He spoke to her occasionally in his melodious voice, mere pleasantries whose response required no effort on her part, but in general he confined his attention to his own friends, ranged around the top table.
The Hawkesmoor and his cadre, in their dark clothes, in their air of controlled containment, stood out among the increasingly disorderly throng. Faces grew flushed, collars were loosened, erect postures yielded to slovenly slouching over the board, but Simon and his ten companions only seemed to sit more erect, to become more noticeably sober with each refilled goblet.
"Damme, Hawkesmoor, but if you aren't as much of a sobersides as Cromwell himself!" Ralph leaned forward to poke Simon's sleeve with a greasy finger, his gray eyes slitted with drink and malice and stupidity. "The devil take the king-killing bastard and all his men." He laughed heartily, flinging himself back in his chair. "A toast! I propose a toast. Death to the Puritan. Hellfire to the regicide!" He raised his goblet, his hand shaking so violently that ruby drops spilled upon the white cloth.
A silence fell over those who could hear Ralph above the noise. All eyes rested on Simon Hawkesmoor and his friends. Oliver Becket drew his goblet closer to his mouth as if ready to drink the toast. His eyes met Ariel's with a mocking glitter.
Ranulf leaned over and punched his young brother on the shoulder. It was no light blow and Ralph swayed in his chair, spilling yet more wine. "Unmannerly churl," Ranulf snarled. "This is a wedding, we want no long-past politics here."
Ralph flushed darkly, half pushed back his chair, preparing to strike out at his brother, but Ranulf's eyes held his and finally with a mutter he subsided, reaching for the decanter to refill his goblet.
The conversation, such as it was, picked up again. Oliver smiled to himself, whispered something to Ranulf, and the two laughed heartily, and it was clear to Ariel that their laughter was directed at the Hawkesmoor, who it seemed hadn't moved a muscle throughout the incident.
"Aye, it's a wedding!" Roland declared. He was the most sober of the three brothers. "And time for the groom to take his bride on the floor."
A roar of approval went up at this and the strains of Sir Roger de Coverley came from the musician's gallery in invitation. Ariel looked expectantly at her bridegroom.
Simon smiled at her, but it was a small, self-deprecating smile that took her aback. This new husband of hers, for all his ugliness, was an overwhelmingly powerful presence. Such a look of uncertainty sat uneasily on the brow of a man who seemed utterly in control of himself and his surroundings. He spoke softly.
"Forgive me, Ariel, but I make a poor dancer these days. You'll not want to hobble around the floor keeping time with a cripple."
Ariel felt the color rushing into her face. She heard the sniggers around the table, the rustle of whispers as folk asked what had been said, felt rather than heard the titters of false sympathy as they were told.
"I am not overly fond of dancing myself, sir," she said, glaring around the table. "I am as like to tread upon your toes as you are upon mine."
"That may be so," Simon responded, his smile now warm. Her swift championship surprised him. "Nevertheless, one of us must dance at our wedding. I dare swear Lord Chauncey will stand up in my stead." Laughing, he indicated one of his companions. "Jack is as nimble footed as any maid could desire, my dear, and I can safely promise there will be no missteps."
"If Lady Hawkesmoor would do me the honor." Lord Chauncey rose, bowing, extending his hand. "I shall be delighted to take the groom's place on the floor."
"And in his bed, too, I'll be bound," guffawed a young man, spraying the table with crumbs from the venison pasty in his mouth.
Oliver Becket gave a sharp crack of laughter. "Such unseemly talk, Hollingsworth! A man may be a cripple on two legs, but it doesn't have to follow that he's as doltish when horizontal."
Loud laughter bounced off the rafters. Simon smiled faintly but made no comment. Hot words bubbled to Ariel's lips, but before she could speak, Jack Chauncey had taken her hand and whisked her away from the table to the cleared area of the hall.
Other couples stepped up to join them in the line of dance. Ariel glanced at her partner as they moved up the aisle made by the couples. His face was set in grim lines.
"I would guess that you find it hard to hold your tongue when men make mock of your friend's lameness," she said quietly, turning beneath his arm as they reached the head of the line. He made no response until they were reunited again at the far end of the dance.
"Only fools make mock of Simon Hawkesmoor," he then said. "You will discover, ma'am, that your husband takes no notice of fools. Their opinions mean as little to him as a gnat bite."
"He doesn't respond to provocation, then?'' She performed the steps of the country dance automatically, her eyes resting intently on her partner's face.
Jack Chauncey laughed and the bitter anger vanished from his expression. "It depends upon the provocation, ma'am. Your husband is slow to anger, but no man who knows him well would willingly arouse that anger."
Ariel tucked this away for future reflection. She had first laid eyes upon her husband a mere half day earlier and so far was finding it hard to come to any conclusions about him, beyond his obvious physical characteristics.
How would he react when told that he was not to bed his wife on his wedding night? Would he accede without a murmur? He would be within his rights to insist. Within his rights, but it would be the act of a brute and a boor, and from the little she'd seen of the man, neither description fit him.
But how was she to know? The man was a Hawkesmoor. That simple fact told its own tale. She could no more contemplate sharing a bed with a Hawkesmoor than she would entertain sharing a sty with the pigs. And Ranulf had sworn to ensure that she didn't have to.
At the top table, Simon watched his wife dancing with his friend. His expression was placid, his eyes mild, and not even Ranulf could guess at the smoldering anger beneath the serene surface. This coarse, inebriated, unseemly festivity was an insult to both bride and groom. And Simon knew it had been so intended. And yet the bride, in her gown of cream silk and vanilla lace, seemed to float above the vulgarity, as if it didn't touch her in any way. His eyes fixed upon the swirling liquid honey of her hair, falling down her back from the pearl-encrusted bands around her forehead. It struck him as like a cloak, a maiden's cloak that somehow covered and protected her from the crude ribaldry surrounding her.
Ariel-a sprite, a spirit of the air. There was something unearthly about her. But maybe it was just the contrast between her delicacy of frame and face and the heavy, earth-bound grossness of her brothers and their friends.