Trapped at the Altar

Tilly beamed, the contents of the pouch clinking as she weighed it in her palm. “Our thanks to you, sir.” She hustled her companions out of the cottage. As the door opened, the sounds of music and merriment drifted on the still night air. Presumably, the feasting would go on until dawn. Ivor shot the bolt across the door and dropped the heavy bar into place. He would have no further disturbance this night.

He refilled his goblet and then filled a second one before carrying both up the stairs. The chamber was softly lit with the candles on the sill and another one beside the bed. Ari sat up against the crisply laundered pillows, her rich black hair fanned around her face, which was almost as white as the cambric of the pillow. She was naked beneath the sheet, a nightgown lying across the end of the bed.

“You might find this welcome.” Ivor handed her the goblet.

“My thanks.” She took a sip and was heartened by the welcome burn of the spirit. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt warm, but she knew the cold came from within her, a deep, icy block of it. She regarded Ivor over the goblet. “How could you agree to that . . . that travesty of a ceremony, Ivor?”

“I have no say in the decisions your uncle makes,” he responded. “The marriage was to take place anyway. It seemed to me immaterial if it was this day rather than any other. It’s not as if a delay would have brought you to a willing agreement.” His eyes forced her to acknowledge the truth, and she turned her head away from the steady gaze.

“No, it wouldn’t.” She sipped her brandy. “At least you saved me from the worst of the bedding, and for that I thank you, even if it was only to salvage your pride.”

He gave a short laugh. “Oh, my dear Ari, that is unsalvageable, believe me.” He turned his back on the bed and went to the window, looking out into the still torch-bright night. The reflection of the flames flickered on the dark surface of the river. “How do you think it feels to be married to a woman who makes it clear she would rather be in her grave than in my bed?”

“That’s not true,” she exclaimed. “Of course I would not. But I can’t make myself love you, Ivor, when I love someone else. How do you think I feel, forced into wedlock with a man I cannot love? Oh, I care for you, I like you, you’re my friend. But that is all, and now that I know what love between a man and a woman can be, I don’t know how to settle for less.” She plaited the edge of the sheet, the candle lighting emerald fires in the betrothal ring, which quite dwarfed in size and splendor the plain silver wedding band behind it.

“Well, that brings us to an unpleasant but necessary discussion,” he said, turning back from the window. “I take it you are no longer a virgin.”

The harshness of his voice, the flatly definitive statement, shocked Ari. Her eyes widened, and then anger came to her aid. She had not betrayed him or deceived him. He had no right to sound so accusatory, almost as if she disgusted him in some way. “True,” she responded. “I have never pretended otherwise.”

He shrugged. “Maybe not. Nevertheless, it poses certain problems. When do you expect to bleed?”

Ari stared at him. “What has that to do with anything? A week, maybe ten days hence . . . I don’t keep an exact record of these things.”

“Well, you should,” he said bluntly. “Did your mother tell you nothing?”

Comprehension dawned finally. “Of course she did,” she snapped. “But I fail to see what business it is of yours.”

“Well, then, I suggest you think a little. We cannot consummate this marriage until after your next bleeding—”

“What are you saying?” she interrupted.

“I am saying that until I am certain you are not carrying another man’s child, I will not consummate this marriage.” He drained his goblet. “Do you understand, Ari?”

“Oh, yes,” she said slowly. “I understand. But you should know that Gabriel did not . . . did not . . .” She stopped in frustration, wondering why she was so embarrassed to say the words. How could she be embarrassed any further in this dreadful farce? “You need not fear that,” she muttered lamely.

“You mean he did not release his seed inside you,” Ivor said brutally. “Is that what you’re trying to say, Ari?”

She nodded and said with difficulty, “He was very careful.”

“Maybe so, but accidents happen anyway, and I’m taking no risks.” He went downstairs without another word, returning after a few minutes with the brandy bottle and a knife. He refilled both their glasses before saying, “Your uncles will wish to see proof of the consummation in the morning.”

Ari looked at the knife. She needed no further explanation, merely asked quietly, “Where will it be best to cut me?”

“Not you,” he said with a touch of impatience. “Me.” He dropped the knife on the bed beside her. “You will cut my inner arm, here, just inside the elbow. It will produce sufficient blood without having to cut too deeply, and the wound can be easily hidden.”

Ari wished she were inhabiting an unpleasant dream, but hard-edged reality was a living force in the chamber. She reached beneath the pillow behind her and drew out her own intricately carved silver knife. “If I must do this, I will use my own knife.”

“You carried your knife to your own wedding?” For once, Ariadne had surprised him. Ivor shook his head in amazement. “Where did you conceal it?”

“A sheath in my petticoat. Tilly sews them into all my underclothes,” she informed him, running her finger along the blade. “We will need a scarf or a handkerchief to act as a tourniquet, in case I make a mistake and cut the vein too deeply.”

“I trust you won’t do that,” he commented wryly, opening a drawer in the dresser and bringing out a thick red kerchief.

Ariadne looked at him, looked at the red kerchief and the knife in her hand, and felt a sudden insane urge to laugh. Her lower lip quivered, and Ivor said sharply, “Something about this wretched business amuses you?”

“It’s a farce, Ivor. One is supposed to laugh at farces,” she responded. “Why should we take any aspect of this travesty seriously?”

“Because in essence, our lives lie in the balance,” he responded, rolling up his ruffled sleeve. “Or yours does,” he added. “If I exposed you as a whore, dear girl, your uncles would kill you on the spot to avenge family honor, and then they would hunt down your Gabriel and send him to a lingering death. I doubt you want that.” He extended his arm. “Now, get on with it.”

She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean to make light of what you’re doing for me, Ivor. But you must see a little of the absurdity.”

“You’ll have to forgive my lack of humor, but at the moment, I don’t,” he responded curtly. “Right now, I am holding out my vein for you to cut so that we can produce a bloodstained sheet that will satisfy your uncles that family honor has been preserved. Now, will you please get on with it?”

Ariadne nodded. He was right. There was no ghoulish humor to be milked from this situation. With a sinuous movement, she slid from the bed, wrapping her nakedness in the coverlet as she did so. She knotted the coverlet between her breasts and picked up the knife from the bed. “Tilly told me that one of the village women will never cut flesh without putting the knife through a candle flame.” She took the weapon to the candles on the sill and passed the blade through the flames several times. “It can do no harm, even if it does no good.”