Trapped at the Altar (25 page)

“No,” Ari conceded. “But Tilly is better at feeding the five thousand.”

“We are hardly that.” He ushered her ahead of him back to the cottage. Tilly was still bandaging and applying poultices, and Ariadne accepted that cooking breakfast for their small band had fallen to her hand.

It was a strange day. It felt for the most part as if they were the only people on earth; not another soul appeared in the village, and the innkeeper and his wife had vanished into the ether. There were provisions aplenty, ample supplies of wine, beer, and brandy, and an impromptu holiday atmosphere invaded the group. Their enemies dispersed as well as they could, carrying off those who could not walk under their own steam. The village remained deserted, and the Fallow Deer became a campsite for a party of travelers taking respite from their journey.

Ivor was prepared to let them rest, the horses in particular. They would perform better if they'd been given time to recover from the shocks of the precious night. But he was still anxious to be on the road again. They had many miles to cover before the bad weather set in.

It was early evening when the sounds of a scuffle came from the backyard. Ivor was on his feet immediately, a half-eaten chicken drumstick in his hand. Abe came in,
hauling the inn's lad by his shirt collar. “Found this one lurking behind the barn.” He pushed the boy into room.

Ariadne looked closely at the pale, shivering child. “He's hungry and scared, Ivor.” She pulled a thigh from the roast chicken and held it out to him. “It's all right, no one's going to hurt you.”

The boy took it tentatively, his gaze never leaving Ivor, who stood looking down at him, frowning. “Where are your master and mistress?” Ivor demanded.

The lad shook his head, biting into the flesh of the chicken. “Don't know, sir. I swear, sir, I didn't know they was goin' to tell 'em you was here. They never told me nothin', sir. I swear it.”

Ivor set down his drumstick. “Who are
them
?”

“Baxter's folk, sir. When rich folks stay at the inn, master lets 'em know.” The boy wiped his greasy mouth with the back of his hand and looked hungrily at the carcass on the table.

“I see.” Ivor picked up his drumstick and took another bite. “And who did your master say was here?”

The lad shook his head vigorously. “Don't rightly know, sir. Don't think master or missus knows, neither. Just as how there's trunks and packages and good horses and whatnot . . . so bound to be some good pickin's, like.”

“And do
you
know who we are?” Ariadne asked, slicing into a loaf of bread, offering the boy a piece on the point of the knife.

He shook his head, eyes wide, before hesitantly taking the bread from the knife. But there was something in his look that alerted Ari. She moved quickly, the bread knife
touching the boy's throat. “Come now,” she said persuasively. “You do know, don't you?”

The lad looked terrified once again. He swallowed against the tip of the knife and said, “Reckon you be Daunt, ma'am.”

Ari nodded and withdrew the knife, using it to slice another piece from the loaf. “Are you sure your master and mistress didn't know that?”

He gave a vigorous nod. “Oh, aye, ma'am. If they'd 'ave known, they'd never 'ave tried to take you.”

Ari nodded and glanced at Ivor, who merely shrugged and said to Abe, “We'll keep him here until we leave in the morning. Feed him and keep a watch over him.” He drained his ale tankard. “I'm for my bed. We leave at daybreak. Ariadne . . .” He put an arm around her shoulders and directed her to the stairs.

Ari offered no resistance. The bed was still a tumbled mass of covers from the morning's emergency departure. She started to straighten them, but Ivor, pulling off his boots against the boot jack, said, “Just get into it, Ari. We're both exhausted, and this God damned journey has only just begun. We must be up before daybreak.”

Ari looked at him with a ruefully raised eyebrow. “May we not play a little?”

“
No, we may not
,” he declared, half laughing despite his preoccupation with the day's events. “Take your clothes off and get under the covers.”

“Whatever you say, sir.” Ariadne removed her clothes, garment by garment, watching him from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. He was trying to ignore her but not very
successfully, she noted with satisfaction as she tossed her shift onto the chest with the rest of her clothes and stood for a moment naked in the candlelight beside the bed.

His body was aroused, and he turned abruptly from the bed. “Get in, Ariadne,
now
.”

She twitched aside the covers and put one knee on the bed, looking at him over her shoulder, her gray eyes sparkling with mischief. “Are you sure we couldn't help each other to go to sleep? We don't have to be too energetic.”

Ivor was aware of confusion. Ariadne, who had told him that she could only love Gabriel Fawcett, was the hungriest, most inventive of lovers a man could wish for. What was it about her that enabled her to separate that
in love
feeling for simple sexual satisfaction with another man?

“No, we don't,” he agreed, feeling his erection gently dying. “But tell me, Ari, do you still love Gabriel Fawcett?”

It was a bath of icy water. Ari had been trying so hard to steer a path through the tangle, and it had seemed to her that the only way to do that was to try to put the past behind her. Now Ivor was forcing the issue. She climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. She said slowly, “Yes, I do love Gabriel but not in the same way I love you, Ivor. You're my dearest friend, and I love you with friendship, but I also love to make love with you.” Her voice quivered a little, and she stared fixedly at the ceiling. “It seems like I'm betraying both of you, and yet I don't know what else to do. Gabriel is gone from my life, and you are in it. What am I supposed to do, Ivor?” The
question came out as an almost desperate plea, and she turned her head slightly on the pillow, her gray eyes huge and shadowed against her pale countenance.

“I don't know.” He blew out the candle and climbed into bed beside her. “I only know that sometimes I feel that I'm playing second fiddle. I don't know which of your responses I can trust anymore.”

“You didn't feel that this morning,” she said, lying still, feeling cold and adrift.

“No, but I wasn't thinking this morning. My body wants you, Ari, but my mind tells me to be careful. If you love this man as deeply as you say, then whatever we do in the ways of love cannot
mean
anything . . . anything that really matters. You are my wife. I want my wife's loyalty and love. And when I'm reminded that I don't have it, then I feel that the act of love is merely going through the motions.”

“As if you were in the whorehouse, you mean?” It was a bitter question, an attempt to protect herself from the hurt he was inflicting.

Ivor said nothing for a long moment, in which Ari regretted she had ever let her tongue speak those words. Finally, he said, “Shall we agree that you didn't say that, Ariadne?”

“Yes, please,” she said softly, rolling onto her side facing away from him. But was it still the truth? Did she simply enjoy lovemaking with Ivor for the sake of it, for the pleasure it brought her? Did Ivor enjoy the act simply for the ephemeral pleasure it brought him? Were they just
so good together in the ways of love that she could forget Gabriel?

No.
It couldn't be possible. The pleasure she took with Gabriel was so different. It was poetic. They talked all the time, and in his company she saw the world differently. She saw colors differently; they were brighter, more vivid. The world even smelled different.

With Ivor, it was a hard, defined world, the lines clear, black, white, gray. There were truths and realities in her world with Ivor, dreams and promises in Gabriel's landscapes. And truth and reality were the cards she had been dealt.

And somewhere in the back of her mind glimmered the thought that Ivor's world was and always had been hers. The pastel, fuzzy-edged world of loving Gabriel was such a new experience it had entranced her, offered her a glimpse of a fairy tale.

G
abriel Fawcett was exhausted, swaying in his saddle, as he rode through New Gate into the raucous hurly-burly of England's capital city. Fear had spurred him on the road from Somerset, and it had been almost a week before he had stopped looking over his shoulder at every crossroads and had slept without waking at every creak of a floorboard in the various noisome hostelries that had given him a bed. But he had detected no sign of a Daunt pursuit and was beginning to allow himself to believe that he was in no more danger than any other traveler alone on the unruly roadways.

The city overwhelmed him. His father had given him directions and an introduction to a merchant acquaintance of his from many years past. He had to find his way to Lincoln's Inn Fields where the lawyers congregated. There he would be able to find his father's lawyer and exchange his letter of credit for guineas to furnish him with lodgings and a new coat and britches before
he presented himself to Master Ledbetter, the merchant, on Threadneedle Street. His father had assured him that Master Ledbetter would furnish him with an introduction to King Charles's court. After that, it was up to Gabriel to make the best use of the opportunies that arose.

For a young man, country born and bred, the prospect was terrifying. But it was at court that he would find Ariadne. She had told him that she and her new husband were to establish themselves at Whitehall, and he had told her in his note to look for him there.

He intended to keep that promise. Once they were together again, then he would know what to do. But what of her husband? What of Sir Ivor Chalfont? What kind of man was he?

And more to the point, would he be willing to let his wife go?

Gabriel shuddered. It wasn't the first time he'd asked himself these questions. Chalfont came out of Daunt valley. It was a fair assumption that he would not simply stand aside when another man claimed his wife. But that was a problem for another day. For now, he needed supper and a bed for the night. When he was fed and rested, his next steps would be clearer. Besides, Ari would probably have a plan. She usually did.

A tavern at the sign of the Black Cock caught his attention as it swung creakily in a gust of wind issuing from a narrow lane just ahead. It would do as well as any other, he thought, instinctively checking his deep pocket for the reassuring bulk of his pistol. His sword was sheathed at his waist, a short dagger buckled to his belt. He could
look after himself even in such a dingy hole as the Black Cock, and he desperately needed to sleep.

He reined in his drooping horse and, with a courage he was far from feeling, stuck his head around the inn door and bellowed for the innkeeper.

Ariadne sat on a boulder beside the rutted track, rain dripping down the neck of her cloak, waiting for the men to change the broken wheel on the coach. They seemed to have been journeying in increasing misery for months, although it had only been three weeks. They had left the great Druid stones of Salisbury Plain behind them days ago, the last sunny day she could recall. It seemed to have been raining ever since.

Tilly perched beside her, huddled in her various layers, shivering and silent. The horses waited patiently, heads bowed against the rain, while the men labored with the heavy coach. The luggage was piled on the side of the road to make the job easier, but it was an enormous task nevertheless.

Ivor finally made an appearance through the rain, Turk seeming to emerge from a gray curtain, a ghostly black mammoth of a creature. Ari stood up and waited for them to get closer.

“There's not much up ahead,” Ivor said, drawing rein beside her. “But there's a barn of sorts and a couple of tumbledown sheds. It'll shelter us from the rain, at least, and we can build a fire while we wait for the coach to be ready.”