Ariel shrugged, still without turning to face him. "I don't trouble overmuch about tight-lacing, and the hoop is easy enough to fasten for oneself at the waist."
He rested his cane against the wall and came up behind her, placing his hands on either side of her waist. He smiled slightly as his thumbs and forefingers met, forming a girdle. "No, you have little need for tight-lacing."
"You have very large hands," she returned, two spots of color high on her cheekbones. The warmth of his encircling hands was spreading through her body, sending the now familiar jolts of lust into her belly. Her feet in their dainty satin slippers shifted and tapped on the polished floorboards. She tried to move away but his clasped hands wouldn't yield. She put her own over them and tried to loosen his fingers. But he only laughed and tightened their grip.
He put his lips against the curve of her neck where it met her shoulders. His breath was warm, his lips firm, and when his teeth lightly grazed the soft creamy skin and his tongue traced the line of her shoulder to the collar of her gown, Ariel shuddered with pleasure.
"We should go down," she whispered, her voice sounding as hoarse and raspy as it had done when her throat was at its sorest.
He raised his head and looked into her eyes in the mirror. "Is something troubling you, Ariel?"
She stared back at him and read candid concern and the bright flickers of arousal in the blue eyes holding her own.
"No," she said. "Nothing… nothing at all. What could be troubling me?"
"I don't know." He loosened his hands from her waist, brought them instead to her upper arms, holding her lightly, still watching her in the mirror. "But something is."
"I'm tired and feeling a bit weak," she said, breaking his gaze by turning her head, stepping away from his hold.
"Then you should stay up here."
"No!" The negative was more vehement than she had intended, and she heard his swift indrawn breath. "I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to shout."
"It was certainly unnecessary," he remarked mildly. "Come, let us go." He gave her his arm.
Ariel glanced again at the mirror. They made a startling pair, his somber black velvet against the vivid brilliance of her scarlet and gold; his towering frame, the rippling strength in the rock-hard muscles, against her own slenderness; the smooth pallor of her cheeks, the soft regularity of her features, against the harsh lines of his countenance, the dramatic twisting scar, the prominent spur of his nose.
A startling pair-a deeply contrasting pair. And yet they seemed to fit in some way. Simon had once talked disparagingly of Beauty and the Beast, but the pair she saw in the mirror were unusual, different, and yet they fitted like the two pieces of a jigsaw you'd never have thought to put together.
Simon followed her eyes to the mirror as she hesitated. But it seemed that he didn't see what she saw, because his face closed suddenly, his eyes hardened, and with his free hand he almost compulsively touched the scar, then he turned his arm beneath hers and his fingers slid around the underside of her wrist as if he was afraid she was going to move away from him. He reached for his cane against the wall and limped with her from the room.
As they descended the staircase to the Great Hall, Ranulf came to the foot to greet them. He had a glass in his hand and his narrowed eyes were filled with malice. "That gown must have cost me a pretty penny, sister."
Ariel dropped him a mocking curtsy. "Are you regretting your bride gift, brother?"
His hand shot out, caught her wrist where the serpentine bracelet glittered. The silver rose chinked against the emerald swan as he raised her hand to the light and the deep ruby in its furled center glowed through the silver like the coals of a brazier. "I expect bargains to be kept," he said. "And where they are not, then I demand redress."
Still holding her wrist, he examined her intently, and when he spoke, it was in a different tone, a smooth, slippery voice. "You appear a little wan despite your finery, my dear. Still a little chilled, perhaps? I trust you haven't ventured outside today."
"No," Ariel said. "I remained withindoors."
"Ah." He nodded. "Then perhaps something else has made you a little peaked." He raised an eyebrow.
"No," Ariel said, consideringly. "I don't believe so." She smiled, and no one could tell what an effort it cost her. "I daresay it's because I've been withindoors, Ranulf. You know how I hate to be confined."
Ranulf frowned and her heart leaped.
When he'd whipped her as a child, it had infuriated him that she wouldn't cry, wouldn't show him that he had hurt her, and she felt that same grim determination now.
The lethargy fell from her like a sloughed skin. She turned a radiant smile upon Simon, announcing gaily, "I'm hungry. Let us sit at the board, husband. I had no dinner last night, and I've had little appetite throughout the day, but now I find myself famished." It was her turn to lead him forward, her small hand closing over his fingers, tugging him toward their seats at the top table.
Simon watched how Ariel chattered with Jack Chauncey about the stag hunt, appearing to eat with indiscriminate gusto of everything that came her way, except that the quantity of food on her plate didn't diminish. She was also drinking her wine rather faster than usual, Simon noted.
"Are you not hungry, husband?" She forked a piece of roast pork onto his plate from the serving salver. "This is most succulent. Shall I find you a piece of the crackling? There." Triumphantly she put a crisp golden chunk of crackling on his plate. She smiled, peeping up at him from beneath her long, curling lashes. "You do like it, don't you?"
He took the offering between finger and thumb and bit it. Ariel's fingers suddenly closed around his wrist, diverting his hand with the last half of the treat to her own mouth. He found himself fascinated by her little white teeth as they took the morsel from his fingers, the moistness of her lips, the little flicker of her pink tongue over her lips to catch any unsightly spots of grease. Her fingers tightened around his wrist for a minute, and her great gray eyes were filled with lascivious promise.
Simon gave up wondering what was behind Ariel's sudden animation. Only a fool would refuse to enjoy it. "Just what are you up to?" he murmured, smoothing his thumb over her mouth. Her tongue darted and her lips closed over the very tip of his thumb.
At any other dining table, outside a brothel, such behavior would be the height of indelicacy, Simon thought. He should be shocked at his bride's immodest behavior, even though he knew it would pass unnoticed in the general drunken depravity around them-except of course by the jealous eyes of her brothers and Oliver Becket. But instead it made him smile. And that shocked him more than anything.
He glanced across the table. His friends were deeply engaged in conversation.
He slid his free hand under Ariel's bottom on the bench. Her muscles beneath the heavy figured silk of her gown clenched against his palm. He went to work quietly, intently, until she ceased her mischievous play with his thumb and whispered, "Don't."
"I thought you wished to play," he returned with an innocent smile.
"It was just a tease."
"So is this. Raise yourself and part your thighs a little."
Her teeth caught her bottom lip, her brow dampened with a little bead of moisture, but she shifted on the bench as he'd directed. His fingers slid deeper against her. Her hands were clenched in her lap, her eyes fixed upon her plate.
Simon grinned and with his free hand nonchalantly picked up a chicken drumstick. He ate it with every appearance of enjoyment, entering into a lively conversation with his other neighbor on the kinds of flies best used for trout fishing in the Ouse.
Ariel couldn't believe he was doing this to her. She heard his voice carrying on his conversation with careless ease while an intensity of pleasure flowed from his fingers. His pleasure in what he was doing swept into her own, became inextricable from her own, and as she fought to control the inevitable, a bubble of laughter grew in her chest. This staid Puritan husband of hers was as capable of outrageous behavior as any rampant Cavalier had been in the debauched court of Charles II.