The queen's gift was grazing placidly where they'd left him. Reluctantly, Ariel mounted him and again he sighed and creaked in weary protest. "Never mind," she said, reaching down to pat his curved neck. "From now on you can live a life of luxury. Bran mash, green pastures, and no one will ever mount you again." The nag whinnied and almost picked up his hooves as if in perfect understanding of this promise.
When they reached the stableyard, Ariel said she wanted to make her evening rounds of her horses. Simon hesitated, wanting to suggest that he accompany her, but she had swung on her heel and strode off before he could open his mouth.
"What the hell is going on with you, girl?" Simon muttered. If something was troubling her, why would she not confide in him? He'd surely done nothing to give her cause for mistrust. Exasperation warred with unease as he limped away toward the castle, from where the sounds of merriment were already floating on the night air.
Edgar came out of the gloom to greet his mistress as she slipped into the warm, brazier-lit stable. "Good even, m'lady."
"Good evening, Edgar. Is everything all right? No unexpected visitors while I was gone? No sounds of trespass? No signs of anything untoward?"
"Nothin', m'lady." Edgar leaned against a stall, sucking the inevitable straw. "We patrolled every half hour last night, an' the dogs were in 'ere, on watch the 'ole time. But I 'aven't seen the 'ounds today."
"Oh, Lord, I forgot!" Ariel exclaimed. "They must still be shut up in my chamber. I'll let them out directly and they can roam loose again tonight. We must keep our guard up until I can arrange to ship all the horses out to Derek." She began to walk up the aisle, pausing at each stall, recognizing the individual shuffles and welcoming whickers of her stud. They were all so beautiful, glossy with health.
Where was the mare in foal? A wave of impotent fury rocked her, and unbidden tears of loss and rage pricked behind her eyes. How dared anyone take what was hers? The theft was more than a nuisance, more than a simple statement of power. It was a violation of her self. No one would ever, ever have that power over her again.
"It will be new moon the day after tomorrow," she said, her voice clipped. "We will move them that night. Have the men bring three barges to the dock in the morning and we'll ship them out before midnight. My brothers and their guests will be well gone in drink by then. We'll need at least six men to move the horses quickly and quietly. Can you arrange that?"
"Aye," Edgar agreed, phlegmatic as always.
Ariel frowned to herself. It should be safe enough, once the revelry in the hall had reached its peak. But she would have to slip away from Simon.
Her hand slid into her pocket and closed around the beautiful bone horse. Tears pricked behind her eyes and with an angry gesture she dashed them away with her free hand and went back outside into the cold.
Oliver Becket lurched through the arch into the stable-yard as Ariel appeared. His head felt as huge and swollen as a decaying pumpkin, about to burst and spew forth its rotting seeds. The noise and smells in the Great Hall had become intolerable, and he'd stumbled out into the air, hoping to calm his roiling stomach and soothe his pounding head. He was accustomed to getting drunk, but this was the worst he had ever felt. Common sense told him that wasn't the case. The mind had the devil's own ability to spread the gentle blanket of amnesia over the more unpleasant consequences of excess.
He tossed his wig to the ground, put his head under the pump, and worked the handle, sending a stream of icy water over his head and down his back, soaking his clothes; and his head, while it still ached, began to clear.
He let go the pump handle and straightened, throwing off the freezing water with a shake. He blinked water from his eyes, staring blearily at Ariel, who came across the yard toward him.
"You look as if you've been for a swim." She greeted him unsmiling, her voice level. "Hardly wise in these temperatures. If you've the headache, I can give you a powder."
Her accurate diagnosis of his condition did little to improve it. Anger knotted his chest. An anger that swelled to a crimson rage as he looked at her. She returned his gaze steadily, and he knew that she no longer saw the man who for a twelvemonth had been her lover. Once she had looked at him with smiling eyes, tentatively expressing her desire. He had become accustomed to the idea that she was his for the taking, ready and willing whenever he thought to snap his fingers.
But now she looked at him and there was no hiding that she didn't like what she saw. Her disdain shone from her clear gray eyes, radiated from every still, straight line of her lissome frame.
He had a sudden vivid image of her at the table the previous evening. Crimson and gold, lusciously sensual, her eyes filled with the mischievous promising pleasure that used to be for him alone. But now it had a different object. He'd watched her turn the full power of that sensuality upon the Hawkesmoor, and only then had Oliver Becket understood what he'd taken for granted, mocked even, certainly underestimated when, with her brother's connivance, he had possessed the little Ravenspeare.
He remembered now, and it was gall and wormwood, the way she'd played with the Hawkesmoor last evening-that private, wicked little game they'd played together. He had seen the moment when pleasure had overwhelmed her, had recognized the sudden relaxation, the transfiguration of her face, the suddenly heavy eyelids, the glow of her skin. And the smug satisfaction of the Hawkesmoor had been a twisting knife in his gut.
For a minute he was speechless, impotent with rage. He stared at her, imagining her body joined with the Hawkesmoor's. His nostrils flared as if he could scent the odors of sex clinging to her.
Ariel unconsciously took a step backward, away from him. From the naked viciousness in his eyes, the taut malevolence in his set face. "Are you ill, Oliver?" She tried to sound normal, to keep the unease from her voice.
"Sickened by the sight of you," he said in a low rasp. "Are you enjoying the Hawkesmoor, Ariel? Does he know what to do to make you whimper… to make you…"
She listened for too long as he continued with a stream of soft vile obscenities that smirched her just by their sound. But somehow she couldn't move away, couldn't even turn her eyes aside from the dreadful hating glare of his bloodshot gaze.
Neither of them was aware of the silent spectator, of the moment when the earl of Hawkesmoor moved out of the shadows of the archway leading to the inner court. The intense tableau was shattered when his silver-knobbed cane smacked down across Oliver Becket's shoulders. Oliver reeled sideways with a yell that sounded more surprised than pained. He stumbled to one knee. A hand grabbed the back of his collar and hauled him upright.
"If there is one thing I cannot abide, Becket, it's a foul mouth in the presence of women." The earl's easy voice sounded as mellifluous as honey after the vileness of Oliver's tirade. Ariel shook her head as if to rid herself of the slimy tendrils of Oliver's malevolence.
"Ariel, would you leave us, please? Mr. Becket and I have some private business to attend to." The earl's hand twisted in Oliver's collar, and Oliver found himself hauled up onto his tiptoes. He realized then what Ariel had realized long since-that whatever weakness had resulted from the injury to the Hawkesmoor's thigh, it was more than compensated by the strength in his arms and upper body.
Ariel looked uncertain. Simon repeated, "Go."
His voice was quiet and courteous, but it didn't occur to Ariel that she had any choice in the matter. She obeyed immediately, almost stumbling into the stable block, trembling, her knees quivering like jellies, her skin feeling soiled and sticky. It wasn't so much the filthy words Oliver had spoken. She knew them all, heard them in the fields all the time. But it was the concentration of his spite that had crept beneath her skin. The dreadful realization that someone could loathe her, could wish to harm her with such single-minded intensity.