"Downright eccentric is a more accurate description," Simon replied with a little laugh that somehow lacked conviction. "I have never met anyone remotely resembling my wife, Helene." He linked his arm in hers and ushered her to the side door of the castle.
Timson was waiting to greet them and within minutes Helene found herself looking with approval and relief around a small yet cozy turret chamber. It took its name, presumably, from the green embroidered tapestries that lined the paneled walls and the green motifs in the embroidered rugs. A table was set for three before a massive log fire, and decanters and glasses reposed upon a pier table against one wall.
"I haven't been here before," Simon observed with an appreciative nod.
"It's Lady Ariel's private sitting room, my lord. She don't usually bring folk 'ere, lest their lordships discover it," Timson informed him as placidly as if it were perfectly normal for a young woman in a gentleman's household to keep her private parlor a secret.
Helene looked startled, Simon merely comprehending.
The room was on the floor above the bedchambers, in the same turret as Ariel's bedchamber immediately below. It had the same atmosphere as that room. A secluded oasis in a desert of sandstorms.
"Lady Ariel said you'd be servin' yourselves, m'lord, so I'll leave you and show Lady Kelburn's maid to the bedchamber." He bowed himself out, closing the door firmly.
"The household seems to run very smoothly," Helene said, drawing off her gloves. "Why should that surprise me, I wonder?"
"It surprised me too. But Ariel is a woman of many facets, as you will discover soon enough, my dear." He reached over her shoulders to unclasp her cloak.
Helene put her hands up to cover his. "I shouldn't have come, Simon, should I? But I would so much like to help if I can."
He made no attempt to move his hands, merely allowed his head to rest on top of hers. "If you can gain Ariel's confidence, my love, I shall be ever in your debt. There is so much that I don't understand about her. I have tried, but she keeps eluding me." He frowned, and they stood for a minute in silence, holding each other with all the easy familiarity of long and friendly lovers.
Ariel stood in the doorway, watching them as they stood with their backs to her. She could read the true history of their relationship in every line of their bodies, in the smooth melding of one into the other. A violent surge of jealousy shook her, and she stepped silently back onto the landing, letting her hand slip from the door latch.
She had no right to feel such resentment. Of course her husband had had his share of lovers. And he had had to contend with Oliver Becket's devil-driven malice. On his wedding night, no less.
No, she had no right to feel even a twinge of dismay at this situation. Not when she didn't intend to fulfill the duties of a wife for very much longer. If Simon chose to keep a mistress, it would not be any concern of hers.
She stepped back in the room, saying loudly, "I've left the dogs with Edgar for the night, since I wasn't sure how Lady Kelburn might feel about sharing her dinner with a pair of wolfhounds."
Simon moved away from Helene, holding her cloak. "Helene's taste in dogs tends to run to the lapdog variety." He laid the cloak over a chair back. "May I pour you both a glass of wine?"
"Lapdogs?" Ariel said on a note of wonder. "But they're not what one would call dogs, Lady Kelburn."
"Please call me Helene, my dear." Helene smoothed her hair where it had come loose beneath the hood of her cloak and smiled at Ariel. "Simon's exaggerating somewhat, but my spaniels certainly wouldn't be a match for wolfhounds." She took the glass Simon handed her and sat down beside the fire, a deft flick of her hand automatically correcting the graceful fall of her skirts.
Ariel sat down opposite and sipped her wine. Her ankles were crossed and she uncrossed them hastily. The broadcloth skirt of her riding habit was creased, and it didn't seem to fall away around her with the natural grace of Helene's dark blue velvet.
Simon limped over and sat on the sofa beside Helene, stretching his leg to the fire, absently rubbing his thigh.
"Your wound still pains you badly," Helene stated.
"It's worse than usual today." Simon grimaced, sipped his wine. "But Ariel has magic fingers and a physician's treasury of potions and ointments." He sent her a wry glance, half plaintive, half questioning, and she blushed crimson, jumping to her feet.
"I'll make up a sleeping draught for you later. Shall we have supper? I own I'm famished."
The evening passed pleasantly enough. Ariel was an attentive hostess and Helene was clearly happy to be in such comfortable surroundings after the sparse cheer at the Lamb. Simon was aware that she was assessing Ariel with all the shrewdness of experience. She knew almost all there was to know about Ariel's background, and she was in Simon's confidence-she knew how he felt about his marriage and his bride. He hoped that her insights would be helpful to him.
And what did Ariel think of Helene? What impression was she forming of her husband's oldest and dearest friend? Would she want the full history of their relationship? He realized that he hoped she would care enough to ask him.
Ariel left Simon to show Helene to her bedchamber and, after a friendly good night, vanished into her own chamber. For a moment she held the door ajar, listening, despising herself, but unable to resist the urge. For her pains she heard Simon grimly instructing Helene and her maid to throw the bar across the door and not raise it until morning. He didn't expand on the instruction, and Helene didn't ask for reasons.
Ariel clicked the door shut and moved away to the fire, absently unfastening her riding habit. She would not eavesdrop further. Let Simon and Helene bid each other good night in private. Besides, the maid was there.
She bit her hp in frustration. What was she thinking? Jealousy was a completely foreign emotion and she didn't know what to do with it… particularly when it was so utterly out of place.
She was in her shift, her back to the door, warming her hands at the fire, when Simon returned. He closed the door quietly and came over to her, setting his cane against the wall as he eased into a chair with a little sigh of relief.
"Helene's your mistress?" Lucifer! She hadn't meant to ask. Her nails dug punishingly into her palms.
"No," Simon responded, leaning back in the chair and linking his hands behind his head in his customary relaxed posture. "Not anymore."
"Oh." It was no good, she had to find out. She turned to look at him. His face was grave as befitted a serious subject, but his eyes were clear and bore the hint of a smile. "When did she stop being your mistress?"
"When I decided to take a wife."
"Oh." Her vocabulary seemed to be severely limited this evening. "How long were you lovers?" Even as she asked she realized that her catechism was no different in essence from Simon's questions about her relationship with Oliver. And if her own questions were prompted by something as stupid but unmanageable as jealousy, then so could his have been. Maybe what he'd been expressing was not purely disgust but jealousy.
Simon stretched with a lazy yawn. "Since we were shamefully young. I was all of fifteen, I believe. We were very precocious."
"But… but… but that's…" Ariel added rapidly in her head. "Nineteen years!"
"Yes, I suppose it must be. On and off, of course. The war was something of a disruption." His smile now reached his mouth. "What else would you like to know?"
"Why didn't you marry? Were your parents against it?"
"No, I believe they would have welcomed it, but we were young. We thought everything could wait on our own whim… or, at least," he amended, "I thought that. I wanted to go to war. I didn't want to leave a wife behind. But I also thought in my arrogant selfishness that Helene would wait until I'd sown my martial oats, as it were, and was ready to settle down."