"Can't you?" His voice was now so cold and flat, she shriveled beneath it like a new growth under the onslaught of a spring frost. All the power of her purpose seemed to leak away. "Can't you, Ariel?"
He moved his free hand to her chin, catching it between finger and thumb, forcing her to look up and meet a pitiless gaze. The silver knob of the cane he continued to hold was cold against her jaw. Each word was now an icy caress. "But never mind, because I begin to understand. Oh, yes, I am afraid that I finally begin to understand."
He kept hold of her wrist, holding her alongside him as he limped to where Edgar was still standing stolidly with the horses.
"Return the horses to their stables and-"
"No!" Ariel cried. "No, you can't do that."
"Oh yes I can. Or have you forgotten the nature of the marriage contract, madam wife?" The words punched at her. "But then, I doubt you read the fine print, since it was a contract you never intended to honor." He turned back to Edgar. "Return them immediately. Put a double guard on them overnight, and keep the dogs roaming free."
Edgar didn't move. Only his eyes flickered from the earl's set face to Ariel's white countenance. Men and horses stood quiet in the wreathing fog, the tension apparent even to those who couldn't hear what was being said. One of the hounds gave vent to a questioning bark that was more of a tentative yap.
"Do not oblige me to repeat myself, man." Simon's voice was that same icy caress, and it sent shivers up Ariel's spine.
"Do as his lordship says, Edgar," she said, defeated. Edgar must not suffer for his loyalty to her.
Edgar reached for the dogs' collars and held them firmly. He turned to the men with the horses behind him. "Take 'em back."
Simon gave a short satisfied nod and turned away as if he had no more interest in the scene. He brought his cane up, the knob pressing firmly into the small of Ariel's back. "Let us return to the house. I'd like to hear your explanations, even if I can guess them myself, in more comfortable surroundings."
Ariel hung back, looking over her shoulder at the ruin of her great escape. The knob of the cane pressed more firmly.
She bit her lip, tears of angry frustration filling her eyes. But she moved forward, stumbling over a stone, kicking it aside with a savage execration under her breath.
She had lost everything. Without her stud under her own control, she had no income to ensure her own future.
His anger felt like a knife edge against her skin. It hadn't taken him more than a heartbeat to guess the truth-that she had never had any intention of trying to make their marriage work.
And through her desperation, anger blazed that he'd dictated to her, ridden roughshod over her actions and her wishes, just as her brothers had always done. How right she had been not to have trusted him. But now what difference did it make?
Involuntarily she increased her pace but he was still holding her wrist and jerked her back beside him so that she was forced to go at the speed he dictated.
"Damn you, Hawkesmoor!" She stopped dead on the path so that he almost stumbled. Anger consumed her. "You've wrecked my life, ruined everything I've worked for, and I will not be brought to heel like a dog on a leash."
"Then walk properly instead of all this stopping and starting."
Ariel compressed her lips but said nothing more as they continued toward the side door of the castle.
The party in the green parlor had broken up soon after Simon's departure. Helene had already dismissed her maid when she heard what she'd been waiting for-Simon's unmistakable footsteps in the passage outside. Consumed with curiosity, she opened her door a crack. Simon and Ariel were coming down the corridor toward her. Simon's face was drawn and haggard, but his eyes were ablaze with blue fire. He held Ariel's wrist as he limped along. Ariel's face was pale and set, a sheen of tears in her eyes. She looked both wildly angry and bitterly crushed.
Helene stepped back as they reached Ariel's bedchamber opposite. Ariel opened the door and as she stepped in she flung her wrist free of Simon's hold almost as if by so doing she could fling him bodily away from her. It looked to Helene as if she was about to slam the door in his face, but Simon moved behind her with surprising dexterity and the door closed on them both with a decisive click
Helene despised herself but couldn't help herself. She glanced along the deserted passage, then slipped out and behind the tapestry that hung against the cold stone wall beside Ariel's door. She didn't know whether she'd be able to hear anything through the crack around the door hinges, but her curiosity was a ravening beast. She had come here to help Simon in his marriage, and if that marriage was in trouble, and it certainly looked as if it was, then she needed to know. She pressed her ear against the sliver of a gap.
"So, I've ruined your life… wrecked everything… I think you said." Simon leaned against the windowsill. He was too worked up to sit down, but after his difficult and frigid walk, his leg was aching like the devil and couldn't take his full weight any longer.
Ariel threw off her cloak. "You had no right to do that!" She had lost all desire to be conciliatory. Of course, he wouldn't understand, whatever words she used. Anyone who could ride roughshod over her the way he had just done couldn't be trusted to understand anything. "Those are my horses. They're not yours. They don't belong to you. You have no rights over them."
"My dear girl," he interrupted with a raised hand. "According to the laws of marriage, what belongs to you belongs also to me."
"So you are going to claim my horses." she said bitterly.
"No, of course I'm not. I have no interest in your damned horses," he snapped, realizing that this issue would get them seriously off track. "I am, however, interested in what's been going on in that devious little head of yours since the moment you knelt at the altar. If you wanted to move your stud, why the hell didn't you discuss it with me first? You knew perfectly well I was prepared to accommodate them at Hawkesmoor Manor."
Ariel was suddenly blinded with tears. How could she begin to explain the miserable tangle in this atmosphere? He wasn't prepared to listen, let alone understand. It wasn't even worth the effort. She turned aside, with an inarticulate gesture of frustration that Simon interpreted as curt dismissal.
His fingers curled into his palms as he fought his anger. He spoke slowly and unemphatically. "Very well. If you won't explain to me, then let me tell you what I think has been going on."
Ariel remained with her back to him, and he said with the same lack of emphasis, "Look at me, Ariel."
As she turned to face him, dashing a hand across her eyes, everything fell into place. Her many evasions when he'd questioned her about her plans for her horses, her tense exchanges with Ranulf about his visits to the stables, the impressively scientific expertise of her breeding program, and most importantly the suspicion he'd had all along that Ariel had been holding herself back from this marriage.
All this time he had thought the betrayal would come from her brothers, when instead it had been his wife who'd been plotting the ultimate betrayal.
"Just when, my dear wife, did you intend to join your horses? Or were you going to depart with them tonight? Didn't you even bother to leave me a note?" He glanced around the room with heavy sarcasm. "But perhaps I don't even deserve an explanation for my wife's desertion."
Ariel stared at a knot in the paneling over his head, trying to pretend she was somewhere else. It was a technique she had perfected over the years when things became too ugly, but like so many others, it didn't seem to work with the Hawkesmoor.
After a pause, Simon continued in the same tone, "At a rough guess, I would estimate that stud of yours in its present composition is worth maybe twenty thousand guineas, depending, of course, on the quality of the stallion. But I'm sure he's a prime beast. You wouldn't have truck with anything less than prime, would you, my dear?"