"We don't have such an elegant apartment in Ravenspeare Castle," Ariel pointed out, slinging a cloak around her shoulders before shooing the dogs into the passage. "I'll take them with me now, and give you some peace."
He put a hand on her arm. "Where are you going?"
Ariel paused, her gray eyes narrowing slightly. "Am I to be accountable to you for all my movements, my lord?"
"For as long as we remain under your brother's roof," he replied. "I would like to be assured of your loyalty."
"You doubt my loyalty?" Her voice was tight.
"Do I have reason to trust it?" he asked quietly.
"We made a bargain. You insult me by implying that my word is not good."
"Yours is a Ravenspeare word."
Ariel flushed. "When have I given you cause to doubt me since we came to this agreement? Have I not gone out of my way to demonstrate to my brothers that we have an understanding?"
At that he smiled a little grimly. "That's another thing we should discuss. When you return from the stables."
"How did you know that was where I was going?"
"Since it was the first thing you did in the morning, it wasn't hard to guess that it would be your last before retiring."
"Well, if you knew all along, why did you pick a quarrel?" she demanded.
"I wasn't so much picking a quarrel as making a point." He reached out a hand and lifted her chin on his palm. "I wished to make it clear that I have no intention of letting my guard down with you, Ariel, for as long as you keep yours up with me." He smiled and lightly pinched the pointed tip of her chin before releasing it. "You may go about your business, but make haste. If I weren't so damnably weak this evening, I'd come with you, but in the morning I hope you'll show me your stud."
Ariel turned away to hide a welter of confusion. Her chin felt warm where his hand had rested, and for some reason she wasn't annoyed, when she knew perfectly well that she should be. She called the dogs, aware that her voice was unnecessarily loud, and hurried away without a backward glance.
Simon leaned against the doorjamb as she almost raced away from him, her cloak billowing around her with the urgency of her long, swift stride. He'd noticed before that she made few concessions in her movements to the layers of petticoats and the hoop beneath her gown.
He looked down at his flattened palm, feeling the shape of her chin on his skin. Such a pointed little chin it was, with the most kissable cleft. In his mind's eye he saw her face, uptilted toward him. Her mouth, with that long, sensual upper lip. Her nose, small but well defined. And her magnificent eyes. Gray, almond shaped, wide set, beneath arched brows and a broad white forehead with a pronounced widow's peak. The Ravenspeares were gray eyed to a man, but Ariel's eyes were both softer and clearer, reminding him of a dawn sky after a rainy night. And they brimmed with the spirit that made the girl the intriguing, complex, private woman that she was.
His hand fell to his side. He limped across to his own chamber, wondering how long she thought they could conduct a marriage without consummating it. What game were they all playing?
A dark shadow flitted across his mind as he struggled out of his clothes. Surely the lords of Ravenspeare weren't planning to do away with him? It was inconceivable. Humiliate him, certainly. Make him look a fool at his own bridal party, most surely. But murder? Would even they go that far with two hundred witnesses-and the queen looking on from afar? And if that was their plan, where did Ariel fit into it?
He shrugged into a chamber robe, a grimace of distaste on his lips. He was damned if he was going to be defeated by this devil's brood.
He took up his cane again and limped back to Ariel's chamber to await her return. The pain in his leg had settled into the steady throbbing ache that he knew would keep him wakeful throughout the night.
"Lord Ravenspeare was 'ere agin, this evenin'," Edgar said, as he accompanied Ariel along the stalls. "Did he say anything?"
"No, nuthin' much. Jest took a look." Edgar spat a
chewed straw out of his mouth. "Spent a bit o' time lookin' at the colt, I noticed."
"A particularly long time?" Ariel leaned against the half door to the colt's stall, resting her folded arms on the top. The colt, recognizing her voice, came forward with a low whinny.
"Not so's you'd notice." Edgar held up the lantern so that she could see the animal clearly as she stroked his nose.
"Umm. But Ranulf wouldn't let on if he had a particular interest," Ariel said slowly. "But could he have heard about the sale, Edgar?"
Edgar shook his grizzled head. "Not unless that Mr. Carstairs 'as blabbed."
"He promised to keep it quiet." Ariel turned away from the colt, her expression troubled. "Let's move the colt tomorrow, Edgar. Ship him downriver to Derek's farm. Just until the sale goes through."
"Right y'are. I'll see to it at dawn."
Ariel nodded, bade him good night, and left the stable. Derek Blake was a farmer whose twin sons she had pulled through the smallpox. He had negotiated the sale for her with John Carstairs and had offered to help her enterprise in any way he could. He was utterly trustworthy and would conceal the colt without asking questions. And if Ranulf did know something, he would surely react in some telltale fashion to the colt's disappearance.
She whistled for the dogs, but there was no answering bark. She whistled again, shivering in the frost-tipped air. Presumably they were off about their own pursuits. They didn't go far from the stables as a general rule, and there was no harm leaving them loose overnight. They would raise the alarm if anyone tried to get too close to her horses.
Before going inside again, she used the outhouse at the rear of the kitchen garden. It was cold and dark but she was damned if she was going to resort to the chamber pot upstairs with the earl of Hawkesmoor lying abed in the same room. Then she made her way back through the kitchens.
Tonight the servants were still up and about, preparing for the following day's hunt picnic as well as tending to the continuing demands from the Great Hall, where the celebrations grew ever more out of hand. A whole month of this was going to run the household ragged, Ariel reflected acidly. They had no reason to thank their young mistress for her wedding.
"Is all ready for the hunt breakfast tomorrow, Gertrude?" She paused beside the cook, who was rolling great sheets of pastry on a floured board.
"Aye, m'lady. The men will 'ave the fires on the home field lit by dawn and the pigs a-roastin' by seven. They'll be ready for carvin' by noon."
"And the drink?"
"The kegs of ale, a butt of rhenish, and another of malmsey are loaded on the carts, m'lady. Ready to go. The breads are bakin' now, the pies are sittin' in the pantry."
"You're a wonder, Gertrude." Ariel smiled and addressed a young girl plucking a duck into a cast-iron washtub. "Doris, would you bring goblets and the makings of a rum punch up to my chamber?" The girl tossed the half-plucked bird into the tub and went hastily to do her mistress's business. Ariel thanked the kitchen at large and wished them good night.
"What's to be done 'ere when 'er ladyship goes, I dunno," a manservant muttered, blowing onto a silver salver and polishing it vigorously.
"You'll not catch me stayin' on," a middle-aged woman agreed from behind a mound of potatoes she was peeling. "I wouldn't work fer that lot of devils fer a silver fortune."
" 'Old yer tongue, Mim, an' you, Paul," Gertrude rebuked.
"Well, ye'll not be stayin', will yer, Mistress Gertrude?"
"None of your business," the cook snapped, slapping the rolling pin onto the pastry dough with a more than usually heavy hand. "Now, get up them stairs with the punch, Doris."
"Per'aps 'er ladyship'll take us with 'er when she goes to 'Awkesmoor," Mim said hopefully.