"Brother-in-law?"
Simon, his reverie interrupted, turned sharply toward Ranulf. Ranulf was regarding him smilingly from over his goblet, but it was an unpleasant, knowing smile.
"There's something I must discuss with you, brother-in-law," Ranulf said, laying sardonic emphasis on the tide. "A matter of some privacy. Would you walk with me in the courtyard?" His chair scraped on the stone flags as he pushed it back.
"A breath of air would be welcome." Simon reached for his cane. "It grows overheated in here."
"In more ways than one," Ralph said with a snigger. "Blanche Carey looks ready to slip beneath the table with anyone who'll have her." He rose unsteadily to his feet. "Perhaps I'll offer m'services." He tottered around the table to where the lady in question, flushed of face and glazed of eye, was unlacing her bodice at the invitation of a cheering group of men.
Ranulf glanced quickly at his companion and caught the flicker of disgust in the deep blue eyes before it was banished. He smiled sourly to himself. The Hawkesmoors were ever prudish-except when they were bedding other men's wives. "Perhaps you find our ways of making merry a little uninhibited, Hawkesmoor? To a Puritan, I'm sure our carousing must seem quite dissipated."
"I don't count myself among Puritans, Ravenspeare," Simon corrected mildly. "My family may have been parliamentarians, but we can enjoy ourselves as much as the next man. Cromwell himself was known to enjoy his wine, music, dancing, even the play."
Ranulf adapted his pace to the other man's slower step as they walked around the hall toward the outside door. "Parliamentarians, royalists-such terms mean nothing these days," he said. "The monarchy was restored over forty years ago, Hawkesmoor; it's time to bury such bones of past contention, don't you think?"
"If I didn't, I wouldn't be here now," returned Simon, and for the first time there was a tart note to his voice. He stepped out into the sharp evening air and drew several deep breaths, cleansing his lungs of the fetid, smoky atmosphere of the hall within. "Those political differences became irrelevant many years ago-"
"Not quite," Ranulf interrupted. "Or we wouldn't now be joining our families to settle our property dispute."
"True enough," Simon agreed, his tone mild once more. He limped across the grassy square in the center of the courtyard, his cane sinking into the soft, soggy soil. A fine, cold mizzle fell from the darkening sky, and he knew his leg would pain him unmercifully that night. This was a damp, inhospitable part of England, and although he had grown up in the Fens, he disliked the land heartily, and was never truly at home amid the dikes and windmills of this fog-swirled landscape.
He paused at a stone sundial set hopefully in the middle of the grass. Resting on his cane, he leaned slightly against the sundial and surveyed the earl of Ravenspeare through the gathering dusk. "There is more than property that lies between our two families, Ranulf. I would bury that too."
The other man didn't immediately reply, and then he spoke with a heartiness that Simon knew in his blood was false. "Indeed, why should the scandals of our fathers' generation haunt us, Hawkesmoor?" He extended his hand. "Will you clasp on it?"
Simon took the hand immediately. Neither men wore gloves and he felt Ranulf's palm to be soft and clammy. His own, firm and dry, was the rough and callused hand of a swordsman. Ranulf was not offering him friendship and peace, he was extending the hand of treachery, and Simon knew it. But he had come into the Ravenspeares' castle prepared for anything, and whatever slippery plans Ranulf might have, they would not succeed.
"You had something you wanted to tell me," he reminded him, casually dropping Ranulf's hand and resuming his awkward pace to the far side of the courtyard.
"Ah, yes. I trust you will not take this ill." Ranulf kept pace with him, his head bent conspiratorially toward the other's ear. "It concerns Ariel." When Simon made no response, he continued in measured accents, "She is somewhat ailing at present and begs that you will excuse her from the marriage bed until she finds herself well again."
Simon had thought himself prepared for anything, but this possibility had never entered his head. "Ailing? In what way?" He stopped abruptly.
Ranulf's little laugh was conspiratorial. "Women's way, Simon. I'm sure you understand."
"Ariel set the date for the wedding," Simon said slowly. "Why did she choose a time when she would be indisposed?"
"She is an innocent, a child, Hawkesmoor. A motherless child," Ranulf added with soft deliberation.
Simon's lips tightened but he refused to be drawn. They had just agreed that the sins of their parents should haunt them no longer. "Has she no woman to advise her? No nurse, no maid, no governess?"
"Ariel has never shown any need for female companionship," Ranulf said, shrugging. "She has cared for herself and her own needs since she left the nursery."
Simon hid his shock. In the last hours he had developed a fair impression of the careless, unseemly way matters were conducted at Ravenspeare Castle, but the idea that a gently bred young woman should grow up without female guidance, even of the most rudimentary sort, left him speechless. Presumably she had had no formal education either. That was not so shocking, many women even of the highest lineage were unlettered, but had she not been taught the arts of the stillroom, or to sew, to manage a household, to play an instrument? All the necessary skills of a country noblewoman. She could ride and she could hawk, that much he'd discovered. And it appeared that she knew the steps of country dances, but what of the galliard, and all the courtly measures that the wife of the earl of Hawkesmoor would be expected to perform?
He contented himself with a dry, "I see," and turned back toward the castle.
"I had hoped you would understand," Ranulf said, turning with him. "The situation is a little… well, unusual, don't you think?"
"An understatement," Simon replied. "Tell your sister, since she doesn't feel able to confide in me as yet, that I am a very patient man. When she's ready to consummate this marriage, she has but to indicate it."
"Ariel will be most grateful for your understanding," Ranulf said smoothly, opening the door and stepping aside so that Simon could precede him back into the riotous scene in the Great Hall.
It was even hotter now, and so noisy it was almost impossible to hear oneself speak. Men and women had fallen forward into their platters, snoring audibly; goblets lay spilled upon the tables; people lurched and swayed around the dance floor. Ariel was dancing with Oliver Becket.
Simon noticed that neither of them seemed to be following the steps of the dance, in fact none of the couples on the floor appeared to be following any coherent set of movements, and even the fiddlers in the gallery had lost track of the dance and were playing at will, regardless of the swaying couples. Oliver Becket's color was high, his eyes glittered strangely, and his hands were roaming freely over the slender figure of Ariel, countess of Hawkesmoor, as she turned and twirled to his touch.
She seemed to be enjoying herself, her husband thought acidly. She was lost in the music, and with her skirts swirling around her, her hair flying, her eyes sparkling, she reminded him of a gypsy girl dancing a wild tarantella.
He couldn't intervene without looking foolish, since he couldn't offer to dance with her himself, not even a stately measure, let alone with such gay abandon. A clapping, stamping circle began to form around the pair as other dancers dropped back, and the two became the center of attention.
Simon returned to his seat among his silent friends at the top table. He could no longer see his wife, who was blocked from view by the circle around her, but could infer from the stamping, roaring cheers that the two dancers were giving their audience their money's worth.
When the dance ended and the circle broke up, Ariel made her way back to the table, her arm tucked into Oliver's, her cheeks pink, her lips rosy, her gray eyes glowing with excitement.