The Silver Rose cb-2 Page 5

  Ariel chuckled slightly, stroking the dogs' heads. "I wonder if you know how useful you are, boys." She slipped off the window seat and went to the bed. She had spent Ranulf s money with abandon. Travesty of a marriage or no, she had reasoned she might as well get as much out of it as she could. The wedding gown of cream silk edged with vanilla lace was only one of the garments she had acquired. She had bought enough materials to bring a fatuous smile to the faces of the Cambridge milliners and enough work to keep an army of seamstresses busy for a week.

  But her most prized new garment was her riding habit. She went to the armoire and drew out the coat, waistcoat, and skirt of matching crimson velvet, thickly decorated in silver braid. She fingered the deep cuffs, the richly braided pockets.

  On impulse, Ariel threw off the old riding habit she wore, tossing the green broadcloth garments to the floor. She dressed rapidly in the new costume, fumbling in her haste with the looped, braided buttons. She tied the stock of crisp white muslin at her neck, put on the new tricorn hat edged with silver lace, and examined herself in the cheval glass.

  It was a most satisfactory image. She had never really given much thought to her appearance before. Life in the Fens was somewhat socially circumscribed, and besides, Ranulf kept a close hand on the purse strings. She didn't need elegant garments for her midwifery in the hamlets, and when she wasn't out and about on such duties, she was happiest in the stables, or riding or hawking, and her old green broadcloth habit had done perfectly well for that. But she felt a tingle of pleasure at her present elegance. During the month ahead, when the earl of Ravenspeare's guests would be entertained with every kind of sport, she would have ample opportunity to show off her finery.

  Unless, of course, the wedding festivities came to a very abrupt end early in the month. Ranulf had said nothing further to her about his plans for the bridegroom, but she wasn't fool enough to think he'd thought better of them.

  But there was nothing she could do for the present. She hurried to the door. Ranulf wouldn't accept defeat for long, but if she wasn't around to be bullied into obeying him, there wasn't much he could do. She whistled to the dogs and they came bounding after her.

  At the head of the stone staircase, Ariel paused. The Great Hall below was crowded with guests, some eating a late breakfast at the long tables set before the fires, others already drinking deep as servants circulated with wine and ale. Ravenspeare Castle was a massive edifice and, in the past, had more than once housed a royal progression and the multitude of courtiers, servants, and hangers-on that that entailed. Two hundred wedding guests had been accommodated easily enough, since no one objected to sleeping two and three to a bed in such circumstances, and the young bachelors, much to their amusement, were accommodated in the dormitories in the old barracks.

  Ariel knew very few of these people. Only those of her brothers' inner circle came in general as guests to Ravenspeare Castle. Those she knew well. Her intimacy with Oliver Becket made her presence acceptable at their gatherings, except on the nights when the men went after female prey and she was banned from the hall.

  Reluctant to go down into the hall and run the gauntlet of the guests, she turned aside, the dogs at her heels, and took a narrow stair set into the massive stone walls. It was a service staircase that emerged in the kitchens, where, to the uneducated eye, chaos reigned. Scullery maids, potboys, and sweating-liveried footmen rushed through the series of connecting rooms, under the great vaulted stone ceilings blackened by the smoke from the massive ranges, where suckling pigs, whole sheep, and barons of beef roasted on spits turned at each end by red-faced potboys.

  Ariel weaved her way through the throng, who were all too frantic to pay any attention to her, the cause of all the uproar, until Romulus, whose head rose above the tabletop, found a succulent cooling pork pie too much of an attraction to resist. His great jaws opened, his tongue slithered across the scrubbed pine boards, and the pie was scooped whole into his mouth.

  "You bleedin' varmint!" bellowed a woman wrapped in several layers of flour-streaked apron. Romulus bolted for the door, the pie still in his mouth, the woman, flailing her rolling pin, chasing after him.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry, Gertrude." Ariel ran outside into the kitchen yard. The cook stood panting, her breath rising in the cold air. Romulus was nowhere to be seen, and Remus had taken off after him. "He's not really a thief."

  "All dogs is thieves, m'lady," Gertrude stated. "It's in their nature, if you don't thrash it out of 'em. Their lordships knows that."

  "Yes," Ariel said. Her brothers had very simple methods when it came to controlling animals-not to mention sisters. "It won't happen again, I promise."

  The cook regarded her doubtfully, then her face creased into a smile. "Well, never mind. What's a pork pie now an' agin? An' 'tis a weddin' day after all." She turned and bustled back to the kitchen.

  A wedding day if it had a bridegroom, Ariel reflected, going toward the stables. It was surely inconceivable that the earl of Hawkesmoor should fail to appear for his wedding. Such an insult would call for another round of bloody vengeance.

  But perhaps that was his intention. He had forced his enemies to agree to a loathsome connection and now he would stand aside and laugh at their public humiliation. Curiously, she didn't feel in the least personally insulted. It was probably less mortifying to be jilted at the altar than compelled to be her brothers' bait.

  Edgar was sitting on an upturned rain barrel cleaning tack as she entered the stableyard. "Saddle the roan, Edgar. I'm going to fly the merlin."

  "Right y'are, m'lady." Edgar rose to his feet. "I'll be comin' along. Or you want Josh?"

  "I'd best take Josh. I'd rather you stayed in the stables… keep an eye on the stud." Ariel frowned. She wouldn't risk provoking Ranulf further today by riding out alone, but it was also prudent to have a reliable watch on her Arabians while her brothers were around. If they started taking an unusual interest in the horses, she wanted to know.

  She went into the mews, alongside the stable block. It was dark, and the air was heavy with the blood of small birds, the acrid smell of bird droppings. The hawks shifted on their perches, eyes bright in the darkness.

  She went to the third perch and gently touched the merlin's plumage. He turned his sharp, unkind eye upon her, his cruel beak close to her finger. "You are a nasty one," she said affectionately, scratching his neck, refusing to move her finger.

  "You flyin' Wizard this mornin', m'lady?" The falconer emerged from the darkness, moving as swiftly and silently as his birds. He held the hood and jesses.

  "Just along the river." She picked up the thick falconer's gauntlet from a shelf along the wall and drew it over her right hand and arm as the falconer slipped hood and jesses over the hawk and released him from his perch.

  Ariel took him on her gloved wrist and secured the jesses. "I'll be no more than an hour." She went out into the yard, where the groom stood beside the roan mare and his own cob. The wolfhounds, looking very pleased with themselves, sat beside the horses, tongues lolling.

  "I ought to lock you in the stables for the rest of the day," she admonished them, but without much conviction. It was too late now to punish them. The groom helped her into the saddle; the hawk sat on her wrist, his hooded head to one side, his plumage slightly ruffled with the wind.

  They trotted through the castle gates and over the drawbridge. The air was cold but clear, the sun bright in a cloudless sky, the road winding its way across the fens toward the distant spires of Cambridge.

  Ariel shaded her eyes against the sun as she looked down the road. She could see only a trundling wagon. No sign of a belated bridegroom. She nudged her horse into a canter down to the riverbank, where she drew rein, unhooded the merlin, and held him up on her wrist to spy the land. A rook cawed from a copse a hundred yards away. A swift swooped low over the river, feeding on the wing. The hawk quivered. Ariel loosed the jesses, drew back her arm, and with an expert movement tossed the merlin into the air.

  T
he earl of Hawkesmoor drew rein, looked up at the sun, and judged it to be close to eleven. The bulk of Ravenspeare Castle stood out against the skyline, no more than half an hour's ride. Behind it rose the great octagon of Ely Cathedral.

  "You're in no hurry, Simon," observed one of his companions. Ten men formed the cadre, ranged behind the earl of Hawkesmoor.

  "I intend my arrival to be timed with precision, Jack," Simon told him. "I've no desire to endure Ravenspeare hospitality a minute earlier than necessary." This was why he was arriving only just in time to stand at the altar with Ariel Ravenspeare. Afterward he would remain for the month of wedding festivities. And while he was a guest at Ravenspeare Castle, he would have a chance to pursue some personal business. Maybe even the woman he sought.

  But first things first. He nudged his horse forward along the causeway ridged with frost-hard mud. He had no mental picture of the girl who would be his bride an hour from now. He had asked for no description and none had been volunteered. If she was walleyed, crookbacked, clubfooted, doltish, it didn't matter. He would marry her and he would remain faithful.

  He glanced up at the pale blue sky to watch a soaring hawk. A plover rose from the reeds along the riverbank, then, as if alerted to the danger hovering above, swooped frantically, darting from side to side to avoid the killer now moving almost leisurely on its tail. Simon shaded his eyes and squinted upward.

  "It's a merlin," Jack said. "No ordinary field hawk, that. Look at its flight."

  It was the most beautiful killing machine. It seemed to tease the desperate plover, hovering over it with its magnificent wingspan, before dipping lazily toward the little bird. The plover flew upward in response, but couldn't maintain its height. It flew down, heading for the copse along the riverbank. The merlin plummeted with the force and accuracy of a lead bullet, its curved beak caught in a weak ray of sun. The plover was snatched from the air in the vicious curling talons, and the men on the road breathed again.

  "Someone's flying it along the river." Jack pointed with his whip to where two figures sat their horses.

  On impulse, Simon urged his horse into a canter, directing him off the causeway. The cadre followed him, cantering down to the riverside.

  Ariel was watching Wizard. He was newly trained and had still been known to take off with his catch. So far this morning, he'd returned to her wrist, but she could sense that he was becoming impatient at handing over his well-earned prey. So intent was she on willing the merlin to come back from what had to be the morning's last flight that she became aware of the horsemen only when they were almost upon her, the soft ground muffling their horses' hooves.

  Her initial reaction was one of angry frustration. Couldn't whoever they were sense that she needed all her concentration for the hawk? But it seemed that they did sense it. They drew rein atop a small knoll, far enough away not to distract the merlin.

  Wizard remained in the air, wheeling and hovering with his prey. Once Ariel thought he was going to head for the copse, where he could tear the plover apart in peace. The group of horsemen were absolutely still on the knoll. Then the merlin arced and flew with leisurely flaps of his wings toward the gauntleted wrist held up to receive him.

  He settled on his perch, fluffed his feathers, and docilely yielded his prey to Ariel's fingers. She dropped it into the game bag at her saddle and fastened his jesses.

  "Bravo." One of the horsemen separated himself from the group and rode down to her. The hounds pricked up their ears, but the horseman gave them barely a glance. "There was a moment there when I thought he might renege."

  Ariel's first thought was that she had never seen anyone as ugly as this giant of a man astride a huge piebald of ungainly lines but undeniable power. He was hatless, his dark hair cropped close to his head. None of his features seemed designed to go with any other. The nose was a jagged spur, accentuated by the livid scar slashing his cheek. His jaw was prominent, his mouth slightly skewed in a smile that revealed crooked but strong-looking teeth. Thick dark brows met above deep-set, wide-apart blue eyes.

  She took in the dark riding clothes, the short hair of a Puritan. Then abruptly she turned away, gestured to the groom, snapped her fingers at the dogs, and took off at a canter along the riverbank, the hawk securely on her wrist.

  Simon frowned. An unusual, not to mention ill-mannered, creature. But a striking sight in that crimson riding habit. "Come, we've dallied overlong." He gathered the reins and returned to the road, the cadre falling in behind him.

  They heard the blast of a horn from the castle's watch-tower as they reached the causeway. "Someone's on the watch for us," Simon observed with an ironic smile. "Maybe they were afraid we weren't coming."

  Twenty minutes later they clattered over the drawbridge and rode into Ravenspeare Castle.

  The iron-studded doors to the Great Hall stood open, and as the bridegroom and his party entered the inner court, the earl of Ravenspeare, flanked by his brothers, emerged from the castle's interior. They were all three dressed in the blue and silver colors of the Ravenspeare arms, wearing lavishly curled, gray-powdered, full-bottomed wigs. The family likeness was startling in the charcoal gray eyes, the angular features, the slightly sneering lips.

  Simon's attention, however, was taken by the figure standing in the middle of the court beside a roan mare. The girl from the riverbank. Judging by her mount's labored breathing, she must have ridden her hard to arrive before them. It had obviously not been difficult for her to guess his identity. At her heels stood the two massive wolfhounds, on her gauntleted wrist sat the hooded merlin. Ariel Ravenspeare. No crookbacked, walleyed, dolt, this one.

  She had removed her hat and held it under her arm. Hair the color of liquid honey tumbled unrestrained to her shoulders, framing an oval face. From beneath long, curling sable lashes, clear, almond-shaped gray eyes met the earl of Hawkesmoor's startled scrutiny with an unnerving intensity. Her nose was small, her mouth full, her chin slightly pointed. She bore little physical resemblance to her brothers, and yet there was something about her that he saw now was intrinsically Ravenspeare. Something about the arrogance of her stance, the tilt of her chin.

  She was beautifully formed, he noticed almost absently. From the sloping shoulders, to the nip of waist, to the curve of hip. He had a sudden reluctance to dismount, to reveal his own clumsy lameness to this girl, so perfect in her youth and freshness.

  The three brothers came toward him. "We bid you welcome, Hawkesmoor." Ranulf spoke with studied formality, but he was angry, his charcoal eyes dark, a muscle twitching in his pale countenance, his mouth so compressed as to be barely visible.

  Simon dismounted, extended his hand. All three brothers shook it, but with noticeable hesitation. Simon glanced to where the crimson-clad girl still stood beside her horse, with her dogs and her hawk. She hadn't moved a muscle. Simon reached up to his saddle, sliding the silver-mounted cane from the loops that held it. He wondered when Ranulf would call her forward.

  "You are very welcome to Ravenspeare, my lords," Ranulf declared, his harsh voice ringing out through the quiet. He moved forward to greet the party who had dismounted with Simon. He had expected a party of lords and ladies, friends and relatives of the Hawkesmoor. Instead the man had come with a troop of fighting men. Ranulf knew them all for what they were, all lords who had fought on the battlefields of Europe beside the duke of Marlborough. They were armed only with the usual gentlemen's swords, but it was as clear as daylight to Ranulf that the earl of Hawkesmoor was accompanied by a protective cadre. Or was it an offensive cadre?

  But this was only part of his anger. The main was directed at his sister, who, instead of awaiting her bridegroom in her wedding gown surrounded by her attendants, was standing

  with insolent insouciance with her dogs and a damn hawk on her wrist, for all the world as if she expected to be married on horseback in the middle of a hunt.

  "The lady?" Simon inquired, his eyes still on the girl.

  "My sister," Ranulf said harshly.
"Your bride, Hawkesmoor, although you'd not be blamed for doubting it. Come here, Ariel!" The command was issued in a tone more suited to summoning a dog.

  Simon's eyes flicked contempt; then, before Ariel could respond to Ranulf's order, Simon walked toward her, trying not to lean too heavily on his cane, trying to hide the slight drag of his wounded leg. She remained where she was, watching him, her gaze unreadable.

  "Madam." He bowed as he reached her. "I believe you had the advantage of me at the river."

  When he smiled, he was not quite so ugly, Ariel thought. His eyes had a faraway look to them as if he'd spent many years gazing into the horizon, but they had a glint of humor too. She wondered whether his lameness was permanent or merely the result of a recent wound. The scar on his face would never leave him, though. It might fade, but he would bear it to his grave. Not that his physical appearance was relevant to anything, she reminded herself sharply. If her brothers had their way, he would never be her husband in anything but name. He was an accursed Hawkesmoor and he would not know the body of a Ravenspeare. She had no interest in him at all. He must be a cipher, a man of no more substance than a ghost who passed for a brief period through her life.

  "I knew of no other Puritan likely to be on the road to Ravenspeare," she commented with a cold curtsy, continuing with distant irony, "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Hawkesmoor. If you'll excuse me, I'll prepare myself for the altar." Then she was gone, through the archway that led to the stableyard and the falconer's mews, the dogs at her heels.

  Thoughtfully, Simon turned back to his hosts and his own watchful friends. "The Lady Ariel seems less than enthusiastic for this marriage."

  Ranulf hissed through his teeth. Ariel was compelling him to make excuses to a damned Hawkesmoor. "My sister is headstrong, Hawkesmoor. But she is not unwilling, I assure you."

  "Ariel is somewhat unconventional, Lord Hawkesmoor." It was Roland who spoke up now, his voice smoothly diplomatic, an insincere smile curving his thin mouth. "Her interests lie mostly with her horses, and, as you saw, she's a sportswoman. Her life on the fens has been somewhat isolated; she's not accustomed to society. But I assure you that you'll not find her any trouble. She'll settle onto your own estates easily enough and won't pester you for visits to court or the like."