Simon's face closed. Without another word he rose from the bed, took his cane, and limped from the room. He closed the door behind him. It was one thing to endure the not-so-veiled mockery of the Ravenspeare brothers, quite another to hear it from his bride. A young girl, many years his junior, one who had never left the land of her birth, who could know nothing of the world as he knew it! And she dared to laugh at his admittedly clumsy attempts to gain her confidence.
His blood seethed, but beneath his anger lurked dark uncertainty. Did she see him as a figure of fun? A repulsive scarred cripple? A man from whom the fresh bloom of youth had been long rubbed off? A man who bore the marks of long suffering on his face and body? A hideous husband for such a bright, fresh maid. A hideous husband forced upon her. He'd guessed when he'd first met her that she was not a willing participant in this scheme. But surely she couldn't have been forced to agree? This was not the Middle Ages; no woman could be legally compelled into a distasteful union.
But Ranulf Ravenspeare and his brothers were not civilized men. Had they coerced their sister in some way?
His spirit seemed to shrivel inside him as he saw himself as he must appear to the eyes of a young and beautiful girl. It was no wonder she couldn't contemplate her bride bed, he thought with a surge of self-disgust. He had been prepared to encounter her resistance to a Hawkesmoor, and he had tried not to think that she might be repulsed by him personally. But his hidden fear had been justified, and he couldn't imagine how he would nerve himself to overcome her revulsion.
He was still standing outside her chamber door, and the sounds from the Great Hall were growing increasingly incoherent. Presumably the disappearance of the bride and groom had been noted. If he returned to the festivities without his bride, he would be licensing the crudest of comments. Better to retire quietly and leave the drunken revelers to their own devices. Let them think what they wished.
He turned aside into his own chamber, opposite Ariel's turret room. A fire burned in the hearth and a lamp had been lit on the mantelpiece to provide some cheer against the night chill. He was weary and saddened and angry, and as he flung himself into a chair beside the fire, he wondered why he had embarked on such an implausible scheme. What had made him believe he could heal such deep-seated wounds? What arrogance to believe he could bring peace to two families locked in blood hatred!
But it was done and he was stuck with the consequences of his conceit. However, maybe he could still turn this ill-fated visit to Ravenspeare land to good use. The thought heartened him a little and he rose to his feet, limping across to the table beneath the window where decanters stood ready filled. He poured a liberal measure of cognac and sipped slowly.
Esther. Somewhere on Ravenspeare land there was-or had been-a woman called Esther. A woman who had born a child to a Hawkesmoor.
Probably she shouldn't have laughed, but it had seemed so absurd. Ariel frowned unconsciously at her image in the cheval glass, unaware of the distorted reflection thrown back at her by the flickering candle on the dresser.
That same look of uncertainty, of self-deprecation, had crossed his irregular features, and for a moment he had looked emotionally stripped bare, his eyes suddenly vulnerable as she stood there convulsed with amusement. She hadn't been laughing at him exactly, it had been more with pleasure at her own secret life. But how could the Hawkesmoor know that?
She chewed her lip crossly. There was no reason for him to have been hurt at her laughter, surely? Annoyed, perhaps, but not wounded. And yet wounded was how he had looked. What on earth had he thought she was laughing at?
The dogs began to whine and scratch at the door, and she returned to the room with a shake of her head. The dogs had been confined since noon and needed to go out. She contemplated her image in the glass, tousled from the dance, the lace of her wedding gown torn, the silk skirt covered in muddy paw prints. There was nothing to save by changing before she ventured out into the night.
She took a heavy velvet cloak from the armoire and slung it around her shoulders, drawing the hood up over her hair and the bridal bands at her forehead. The dogs barked excitedly at this evidence of their impending release.
"All right, all right… patience." She pulled on gloves, clasped the cloak at her throat, and opened the door. The hounds bounded ahead of her toward the stairs down to the Great Hall but stopped when she called them sharply.
"We're not going that way," she told them, turning aside to take the narrow stair that led through the kitchens. They jostled her on the stairs in their eagerness to get outside, and she nearly tripped down the last three steps.
The kitchen was quiet and surprisingly orderly. Two potboys slept almost in the embers of the hearth, a footman sat nodding over a tankard of ale, and a lone scullery maid scrubbed at blackened pots in the long trough in the scullery.
"Leave that, Maisie, and get you to bed." Ariel stood under the arch that separated the massive kitchen from the scullery.
"Mistress Gertrude said as 'ow I mun' finish up tonight, m'lady," the girl said, wiping her brow with a chapped hand. "Seein' as 'ow I 'ad special leave to visit me ma yesterday when all the preparations was goin' on."
"Was your mother sick?"
"Oh, no, m'lady. She 'ad a bonny babe." The girl's tired face lit up. "Suky, they're goin' to call 'er."
"In the morning I'll send a birthday gift for your sister," Ariel told her, smiling. "But get you to bed now. I'll make matters right with Mistress Gertrude."
The girl dropped the pot she was scouring with a clatter and wiped her hands on her apron as she bobbed a curtsy. "Thank you, m'lady." She scurried away in the direction of her own narrow pallet in the attic with the other maids.
Ariel wondered if Maisie would stop to think it strange that her newly wedded mistress was roaming the house on her wedding night instead of securely abed with her bridegroom. Then she shrugged the question aside. What did it matter what the household thought? They were all accustomed to the eccentricities of their Ravenspeare masters. If it weren't for the fact that Ariel held the household reins firmly in her own hands, the lords of Ravenspeare would have a hard time finding local people to serve them.
The dogs were barking at the closed kitchen door. When she opened it, they bounded out into the night, streaking across the yard toward the stables, where Ariel's nightly habit would take them.
Edgar looked up from the charcoal brazier he was tending as his mistress entered the Arabians' stable block. "Eh, I weren't expectin' ye tonight, m'lady."
"It would take more than a wedding to keep me from my rounds," Ariel said soberly. "How's the colt?" She unfastened the half door of one of the stalls and slipped inside. "Oh, he's so beautiful. I shall miss him." She stroked the white blaze on the colt's nose. "But can you believe that someone's willing to pay a thousand guineas for him?" Her voice was awed as she gently pulled the colt's ears.
"Anyone what knows their 'osses, m'lady, would pay that an' more for such a beauty." Edgar leaned over the half door, sucking a straw, his gaze sharp yet benign.
"I still think it's amazing. If I could just sell two more, I'd be ready to set up on my own." She moved back out of the stall, Edgar stepping aside for her and pulling the half door closed behind them.
" 'Is lordship was down 'ere yesterday," Edgar observed with seeming casualness.