Enchanted (20 page)

Ariane’s fingertips found the single,
unseeing eye and explored it delicately while Simon’s
passionate words sent streamers of heat through her.

“The flower of your womanhood is a softness
beyond imagining,” he whispered. “I yearn to caress
that softness, taste it, bathe in the sultry fountains of your
desire and bathe you in turn with my own passion.”

Simon’s words flicked Ariane like a whip of
fire, flushing her skin, making her breath shorten. Her hands
slipped lower as unfamiliar sensations made her whole body tremble.
Her fingertips found the taut, aching spheres that held generations
yet unborn. Curiously, caressingly, Ariane explored his very
different flesh.

Simon watched her face through slitted eyes. Her
expression was shuttered by a veil of midnight hair. Flames from
the brazier sent more shadows than illumination over Ariane’s
expression. He could not decide whether her response to the
intimacy was hot or cold or merely…dutiful.

Simon closed his eyes and stopped asking questions
that had no answers. All that mattered to him was here, now, and it
was on fire.

“Your fingers are like tongues of
flame,” Simon whispered, shuddering. “Licking all over
me, making me burn. Sweet God, you are killing me.”

“No,” Ariane whispered, caught by the
strain in his voice. “I wanted to heal your pain, not make it
worse.”

“Then heal me.”

“Can it be done without…” Her
voice died.

Oh God, bad enough that
Geoffrey taught me to fear what other women seem to enjoy. But it
is worse, far worse, that he took from me the virginity that should
have been my gift to Simon
.

I cannot bear to look at Simon
and see disgust for me in his eyes
.

Like my father
.

Like my priest
.

Loathing me, believing that I
was wanton rather than innocent
.

How could Simon believe
differently? Look at me with him, touching him, stroking him,
wanting nothing more than to be closer to him and then closer
still
.

He lures me rather than pins
me down with his greater strength. He doesn’t hold me in a
vise of male power that leaves me helpless to escape
.

“Can it be done without coupling?”
Simon asked when Ariane did not speak. “Is that what
you’re asking?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Aye. It can be done. ’Tis less than a
grain against a bushel, but ’tis one grain better than
naught.”

Simon’s words made little sense to Ariane.
She understood only that there was something she could do to ease
the tension raking through Simon’s hard, hot body.

“Tell me,” Ariane urged. “Let me
heal you.”

Simon’s only answer was that of his hands
fitting over hers, teaching her how to stroke and how to hold, when
to tease and when to end the teasing.

Suddenly Ariane felt the shudder that convulsed
Simon, heard his ragged groan, and sensed something spilling
between her fingers like silky blood. She looked
down, but saw only his mantle and a wedge of darkness
that was his body.

“Simon?” Ariane asked anxiously.
“Are you all right? I felt…blood.”

Simon almost smiled despite the shocks of pleasure
that went through him at each delicate probe of her fingertips over
his still aroused flesh.

“Nay, nightingale.”

“But I did,” she insisted. “It
was too thick to be anything but blood.”

“What you felt was the children you will
never know unless I taste ecstasy while our bodies are
joined.”

Ariane’s eyes widened into mysterious pools
of darkness. Her breath caught as fire licked through her. She
became aware of herself in an unfamiliar way—breasts both
taut and heavy with sensation, a throbbing promise that was
repeated in the sultry flesh between her legs.

Slowly, gently, Ariane stroked Simon’s still
swollen flesh, thinking to soothe him, for shudders came to him
with almost every breath. Warmth and the scent of balm laced with
something even more elemental rose from the opening of the mantle.
She breathed deeply, infusing herself with the heady mixture.

And then something that was more than a dream and
less than a memory blossomed within Ariane.

Firelight and the scent of
roses. Balm smoothed over my skin, sinking into me
.

Everywhere
.

“Did you care for me in this way while I lay
healing?” Ariane asked starkly.

The accusation in her voice caught Simon on the
raw. She had just given him sweet release, her hands were even now
making him swollen with new need, and she was looking at him as
though he were a dangerous stranger.

Simon’s jaw clenched as he fought to still
the wild race of his blood. He wasn’t successful. Ariane was
too close, her hands too soft, the smell of ecstasy too fresh.

“Only once,” Simon said in a low, rough
voice.

“When?”

“When you were almost well. Do you
remember?”

“I…”

Ariane’s breath caught as a streamer of
memory coursed through her.

She had been held in thrall, but not in the
darkness and rage of her nightmare. The hands and mouth caressing
her body had been gentle rather than harsh, the voice husky rather
than drunken, the breath sweet rather than rancid with ale.

“You touched me,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Even…”

Her voice died, but Simon understood.

“Yes,” he said. “Even
here.”

Simon’s hand moved between Ariane’s
thighs. His palm cupped her tenderly.

Ariane gasped and jerked back as though Simon had
taken a whip to her. Even as Ariane’s mind reassured her that
Simon would never brutalize her as Geoffrey had, echoes of pain and
humiliation made her stiffen.

Cursing his own lack of control and her lack of
desire, Simon snatched back his hand.

“You were less cold while you were
healing,” he said curtly.

“
I wasn’t
awake
.”

“Nor were you asleep.”

“I don’t remember,” Ariane said
frantically.

“I do. When I touched you like that, you
lifted toward me!”

Eyes wide, Ariane looked at Simon. The fire
transformed his hair and clipped beard into a halo of golden light.
His black eyes were like night itself; clear, deep, flecked with
glittering light.

“Now do you understand?” he asked in a
harsh whisper.

Ariane shook her head so hard that her hair seethed
like black flames.

Simon whipped off the mantle, revealing to the
chill air and dancing firelight everything that had been
concealed.

“Look at yourself,” he whispered
fiercely. “You are all but naked, sitting astride
me.”

Ariane shivered.

“Think how close is the sword,” Simon
said in a low, relentless voice. “Think how open and
vulnerable is the sheath.”

Ariane looked down. A ragged sound was torn from
her.

If he moves at all, he will
learn that he has been deceived. Then there will be no more
kindness, no more gentleness, nothing but pain
.

“No!” Ariane whispered.

When she would have retreated, Simon’s hands
clamped onto her thighs, holding her as she was.

Open.

“Do you fear rape?” Simon asked
sardonically. “For nine long days and nights you lay
vulnerable to me. Did you awaken torn asunder and crying your
violation to God?”

Ariane barely heard. All she knew was that she
couldn’t move, couldn’t escape, yet she must do
both.

“
Let me
go
!” Ariane cried, clawing futilely at Simon’s
hands.

The raw emotion in Ariane’s voice chilled
Simon’s blood as nothing else could have. An icy rage at his
own weakness and the coldness of his bride broke over him.

He set Ariane aside so swiftly that she fell back
onto the bedding. As he came to his feet, he whipped the mantle
around his shoulders. For the space of three heartbeats he stood
looking down at her with eyes darker than any nightmare she had
ever known.

“Sleep well, wife. You need not fear my
unwanted touch again. Ever.”

T
he lord’s solar in Blackthorne
Keep was spacious and luxurious. The walls were hung with draperies
in shades of wine and jade green and lapis lazuli, and threads of
precious metal ran through the cloth like captive sunlight.

The draperies had been brought back from the Holy
Land, as had the rugs that warmed the floor. The clean scent of
herbs and spices was everywhere, for it pleased Meg’s
spirit.

It pleased Ariane as well. Even after nearly ten
days spent at the keep, the rushes covering the floor continually
surprised her with their scent. She took a deep breath and then
another, savoring the complex interplay of fragrances.

Her fingers danced over the strings of her lap harp
as she tried to match music with a room that was masculine in its
size and decoration, yet had the fragrance of a woman’s
garden.

The individual sounds that Ariane drew from her
harp turned slowly into chords. The quivering harmonies rose and
swirled until it seemed that the very notes shimmered in the air,
describing a time and a place where male was partnered with
female…and both were enhanced by the union rather than
diminished.

When Ariane paused to consider the beauty of the
solar once more, she heard a delicate chiming music coming from the
great hall beyond. The sound was approaching the lord’s
solar.

Ariane turned and rose to her feet, knowing that it
would be Meg coming into the room. Only the lady of Blackthorne
Keep wore sweetly singing golden bells.

“Good morning to you, Lady Margaret,”
Ariane said.

“Good morning to you,” Meg said.
“Did you sleep well?”

Slowly Ariane’s mouth took on a curve that
was too sad to be a smile.

“Aye,” she said quietly.

What Ariane didn’t say was that sleep was
becoming more and more difficult each night. On the trail she had
shared Simon’s bed as much from necessity as from any
particular desire on his part. Once at Blackthorne Keep, Ariane had
assumed she would be given quarters of her own, for it had been
quite clear that Simon had no intention of pursuing the
consummation of his marriage.

Sleep well, wife. You need not
fear my unwanted touch again. Ever
.

But Blackthorne Keep hadn’t enough rooms to
spare two for a married couple. Ariane and Simon had been given a
room close to the bathing room. The room had been Meg’s
before her marriage to Dominic le Sabre. The other rooms on that
floor of the keep were unavailable, for they were being renovated
with an eye toward children.

Simon could have slept in the barracks with the
rest of the keep’s fighting men, but that area was filled to
overflowing. Dominic had been recruiting knights returning from the
Holy War, as well as men-at-arms, squires, grooms, and the servants
necessary to support the growing number of people living at the
keep.

Though Ariane understood the necessity of combined
quarters, she found it difficult to sleep next to a man whose very
breath made curious threads of heat gather throughout her body. A
man whose shimmering sensuality came to her in dreams, setting her
afire. A man whose restraint she trusted. A man much beloved by
the keep’s cats. A man whose own feline
grace made her heartbeat speed.

But not with fear.

How can I fear a man whose
chain mail hauberk serves as a ladder for kittens
?

The answer was as swift as it was unavoidable.

I fear what will happen when
Simon discovers that I am no maiden, but a girl hard-used by a
dishonorable knight
.

Will I finally find the death
I once sought
?

Once, but no more. Now the rainbow possibilities of
life called to Ariane.

Somehow, while she had lain in thrall to Learned
medicine and fragrant balm, much of the poison of her past rape had
drained away, allowing another kind of healing to begin. Nightmare
rarely came to Ariane now unless she was in some way
restrained.

As she had been by Simon when she sat astride his
lap and discovered that some things burn far more deeply than
fire.

The downward curve of Ariane’s mouth became
deeper as she remembered how she had cried out and clawed at Simon
hands. The pride and anger in him at her rejection—and the
hurt—had been almost tangible.

He had no way of knowing it had been past nightmare
that she rejected, not Simon himself.

I must tell him
.

Soon
.

Tonight
?

A shudder coursed through Ariane at the thought of
how Simon would react. He deserved better than a bride whose
emotions and body had been savaged by a cruel knight.

Just as Ariane herself had deserved better than
rape and betrayal by the very men who should have honored and
protected her.

I can’t tell him. Not
yet
.

Not tonight
.

If Simon has a chance to know
me better, perhaps he will believe that it was rape rather than
seduction that forced my maidenhead
.

But my own father did not
believe
.

“Lady Ariane?” Meg said gently.
“Do sit down. You look quite pale.”

Ariane straightened her shoulders and released a
breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. Her fingers moved
restlessly on the strings of her harp.

It was jagged sorrow rather than completion that
she drew from the instrument.

“I am well,” Ariane said neutrally.
“The medicines you and Cassandra used healed me.”

“Not quite.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen to your own music,” Meg said.
“It is darker than even Simon’s eyes.”

“Betrayed by my own harp.”

Ariane had meant the words lightly, but they came
out as a bleak statement of fact.

“Are the men still out hawking?” Ariane
asked quickly.

“No. We just came back.”

Slowly Ariane absorbed the fact that she
hadn’t been awakened to go hawking in the glorious dawn, but
Meg had.

It shouldn’t have hurt Ariane, but it
did.

“Simon said you had slept badly and
shouldn’t be disturbed,” Meg said.

A ripple of discordant notes was Ariane’s
only response.

“Was the hawking successful?” Ariane
asked politely while the strings were still quivering.

“Aye. Dominic’s peregrine brought down
enough fat waterfowl to assure a feast. Simon’s gyrfalcon did
just as well. They earned so many morsels of freshly killed fowl
that the falcons could barely fly toward the end of the
morning.”

Ariane forced a smile. “Skylance is a fine
falcon, worthy of Simon in every way.”

The tone of Ariane’s voice said much more,
implying that other things—such as his wife—were not
quite so worthy of Simon.

Meg’s green eyes widened. She
saw
Ariane with Glendruid eyes, and what Meg saw
was unsettling: Ariane did indeed feel that Simon had been cheated
in the marriage bargain.

As for Simon…Meg didn’t need Glendruid
eyes to know that Simon was like a wildcat that had been caged and
tormented until it savaged everything within reach.

“Lady Ariane,” Meg said. “Is
there some way in which I could serve you?”

Ariane gave the Glendruid girl a curious
glance.

“’Tis I who should be serving
you,” Ariane said. “You are the lady of the keep, and
heavy with child. I am but a guest.”

“Nay.” Meg’s response was instant
and earnest. “You and your marriage to Simon are very
important to Blackthorne and to the Disputed Lands.”

Silently Ariane nodded while her fingers strummed
without purpose on the harp.

“Without your marriage,” Meg said
urgently, “war would once again claw at the very life of my
people.”

Again Ariane nodded.

“Yet I fear it isn’t enough for you and
Simon to be joined in the sight of God and man,” Meg said in
a strained voice. “I have dreamed in the Glendruid
way.”

Ariane went still. “Of what?”

“Of two halves that refuse to be made whole.
Of rage. Of betrayal.
Of ravens pecking out
the eyes of my unborn babe
.”

A shocked sound was all Ariane could manage. Her
throat closed around protests and questions that were futile. There
was nothing to be said that could undo Meg’s grim Glendruid
dream.

“What must I do?” asked Ariane.

Her voice was dry, aching, barely more than a
whisper.

“Heal that which lies festering between you
and Simon,” Meg said bluntly. “You are the two stubborn
halves that threaten the whole of Blackthorne and the Disputed
Lands.”

“What of Simon?” Ariane retorted.
“Has he no part in this healing?”

Meg’s normally full lips flattened into a
harsh line. “Simon says he has done all that he can. I
believe him.”

Ariane looked down at her harp and said
nothing.

“I know my husband’s brother,”
Meg said evenly. “Simon is proud, stubborn, and as quick with
his temper as he is with his sword. Simon is also as loyal a man as
ever drew breath. It is Dominic who commands Simon’s
loyalty.”

“Yes,” whispered Ariane. “To be
blessed with another’s loyalty like that…”

She couldn’t finish. Eyes closed, fearing
even to breathe, Ariane waited for the trap to close around
her.

Again.

“If there were aught to be done for his
brother’s benefit, Simon would do it,” Meg said
simply.

Ariane nodded, fighting back the unexpected
tightness of her throat as she thought of Simon’s loyalty.
With each heartbeat, the tension in her throat increased until she
was afraid she would cry out. It was as though sorrow somehow
burned inside her, waiting to be quenched by tears.

But that was impossible.

She hadn’t wept since nightmare had closed
cruelly around her. She wouldn’t weep now. A woman’s
tears accomplished nothing, save to call down the contempt of
priests, fathers, and dishonorable knights.

“Thus,” Meg continued relentlessly,
“the cause for your marriage being less than it seems comes
from you, rather than from Simon.”

“Yes,” Ariane whispered.

Meg waited.

Silence expanded until it filled the room to
suffocation.

“I ask again, Lady Ariane: How may I serve
you?”

It was more a demand than a request.

“Can you change the nature of man and woman
and betrayal?” Ariane asked.

“Nay.”

“Then there is nothing to be done to make
Simon’s marriage better.”

“’Tis your marriage as well,” Meg
pointed out crisply.

“Yes.”

“You lie with Simon at night, yet there is a
distance between you two that is greater than that lying between
the Disputed Lands and the Holy Land.”

Ariane gave Meg a sideways glance.

“It takes no special Glendruid sight to see
the estrangement between you and your husband. The people of the
keep talk of little else,” Meg said bluntly.
“God’s teeth, what is wrong?”

“Nothing that can be set aright.”

Meg blinked and then went quite still. “What
do you mean? Speak plainly.”

“You seek to cure an ailing marriage by
sexual congress,” Ariane said, each word precise. “I
tell you that such a ‘cure’ will result in the very
disaster you seek to avoid.”

There was silence while Meg absorbed Ariane’s
unexpected words.

“I don’t believe I understand,”
Meg said carefully.

“Be grateful. I understand all of
betrayal’s cruel aspects. Such knowledge is a curse I
wouldn’t wish upon Satan himself, much less upon Simon the
Loyal.”

“Don’t juggle words with me,”
snarled Meg. “It is my unborn babe at risk!”

Startled, Ariane looked at the smaller
woman’s searing green eyes. For the first time Ariane
understood that
Glendruid healers had the same
elemental ferocity as spring itself; only something that untamed
could burn through the lifeless coils of winter to ignite the life
beneath.

“I meant no disrespect,” Ariane said in
a low voice.

“Then tell me what I must know!”

Ariane closed her eyes and clenched her hands on
the harp’s cold, smooth frame. Into the silence came the
crackle of fire in the hearth and the odd, strained humming of harp
strings that were far too tightly drawn.

“Tell me, witch of Glendruid, can you take a
broken egg and make it whole again?”

“No.”

“Given that, do the details of how and when
and where and why the egg was broken matter so much to
you?”

“You are not an egg,” Meg said
impatiently.

“No. I am a chattel that was transferred
first to one man and then to another. I am a pawn in a masculine
game of pride and power. I am a ‘stubborn half’ that
cannot
be made whole.”

Abruptly Ariane released the strings. They cried
out as though being torn apart.

“Does Simon know the cause of your
stubbornness?” Meg asked.

“No.”

“Tell him.”

“If you knew what—” Ariane
began.

“But I don’t,” Meg interrupted
fiercely. “Tell Simon. He would move Heaven and Earth to help
Dominic.”

“You ask too much of Simon. There is no
justice in that.”

“Ravens don’t care about justice or the
tender nature of their prey. Neither do Glendruid
healers.”

Before Ariane could argue further, she heard
Dominic and Simon striding through the great hall, laughing and
comparing the skill of their falcons.

“Tell him,” Meg said in a voice that
went no farther than Ariane’s ears. “Or else I
will.”

“Now? Nay! ’Tis a private
thing!”

“So is death,” Meg retorted. Then she
released a pent breath. “You have until tomorrow. Not one
breath longer. My dreams grow dire.”

“I cannot. It needs more time.”

“You must. There is no more time.”

“’Tis too soon,” Ariane
whispered.